Western Mediterranean Cruise: Day at Sea and Valencia, Spain

Our fifth day was spent at sea. We had breakfast delivered to our room and all enjoyed eating on the balcony. 

 Our breakfast.

 Milk in a teacup. How fancy!

     We spent the morning at the pool and laying out. Connor really wanted to bowl, so we took him to play just one game. While we were there, we saw that we could purchase the game package for unlimited bowling, 4D cinema movies, and formula one racing for 55 euros. We thought it would be worth it, so we bought it and spent the rest of the day playing.

     While we were at dinner, Connor saw the mini club kids staff dressed up in spooky clothes and the kids had their face painted. He was scared at first, then told us he wanted to get his face painted. We tried taking him to the class to drop him off, but they were gone. We were told they were on the pool deck for family disco. We went right up there and Connor had so much fun dancing.

He won a stuffed mascot. {He was yelling "I won! I won! I won!" before he even won to try and get their attention so they would pick him. One time practically walked on stage}

   Our sixth day was spent in Valencia, the third largest city in Spain. It was such a pretty city and the weather was really nice as long as we weren't standing directly in the sun. Besides walking around and seeing the city, I really wanted to climb the bell tower to get a panoramic view of the city and visit Mercat Central.

 Standing in the middle of Plaza de la Virgen, one of the oldest squares in Valencia.

 Basilica de la Virgen de los Desamparados. It's dedicated to the patron saint of the city and the most important religious building in Valencia.

 Cathedral of Santa Maria.

 Left: I'm all about old doors. Right: El Micalet {also called El Miguelete} Tower.

Door of the iron gates. {The main door of the cathedral}

 Left: Later in the day, while Connor and Aaron stayed behind, I walked up all 207 winding steps to get to the top of the bell tower. Right: The main bell named El Micalet.

 The view was so worth it!

You can see Plaza de la Virgen in the center.

      After seeing the outside of the church, but before I actually climbed the bell tower, we walked until we found the indoor market I read about: Mercat Central. They sold everything there.

 We bought Connor a surprise snack along the way.

 The outside of the Merkat Central {aka Mercado Central}. The building was completed in 1928.

 The beautiful dome in the center let's in so much light.

 I feel really dumb for mentioning this, but I thought all the meat hanging was a decoration. I didn't realize it was edible.

 I thought it was neat how they displayed their spices.

 Connor was looking at the live eels.

    This store was so cute. I got a large antique looking bell and a leather key chain from here.

      After looking around the market, we walked around until we found a really cute home store I wanted to look in {see picture above}. While there, the owner told us of a silk museum down the street that was worth a visit. After making our purchase we went to what we thought was the silk museum with silk, but it turned out to be an old silk exchange building called La Llotja de Mercaders. When we didn't see any silk, we were super confused as to what we were looking at. It wasn't until after the tour that we saw the tiny pamphlets that explained it and realized it was a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 Connor standing in front of the old doors of the old silk exchange.

 View from the garden in the center.

The Contract Hall: Commercial transactions took place here inside here. {The other side of the doors Connor took the picture in front of.}

It's also called the Hall of Columns.

 The Chapel

 The Basement

 The basement door reminded me of honeycomb.

 Gothic detail on the outside.

 Consulate of the Sea: The ceiling is from the 15th Century and was from the former Town Hall.

     After touring La Llotja, we walked back to the cathedral and I climbed the bell tower as shown in the beginning of the post. Since there were so many steps and it was a narrow path up, Aaron decided to skip it and stay back with Connor. When I was finished, I came back to Connor enjoying gelato. I was tired from the climb up and climb down, so I took a little break and then we had a small bite to eat at a tapas bar. We couldn't decide what to get, so we picked calamari because we love it, and chorizo with eggs, pepper, and potatoes.

 The calamari was huge.

 I wasn't a fan, but Aaron was.

     After eating, we were ready to go back to the ship. We took a different route and stumbled upon a hobby shop... just up Aaron's alley. He has been talking about wanting to build a model airplane with Connor, so this was just the spot.  We came out with a model airplane, paint, paint brushes, and a free metal airplane the owner gave Connor.

 Connor was too busy playing with his airplane to look at the camera.

     When we got back to the ship, we took Connor to the kids play area for a little while. After he played for about an hour, he was ready to leave. We went back to our room and showered and then dropped Connor off at the mini club. We had a nice dinner alone with a little spying on Connor, had a couple drinks, and then watched the show in the theater where we picked up Connor for the night.

While we enjoyed our evening, Connor was busy being a pirate.

XOXO,

Jenn