Paella and the Beach

The "19" bus passes by our hotel.  In one direction it takes you to old town.  In the other past the port to the beach. It takes us to the port where we come across the site of the 33rd America's Cup contest hosted by Alinghi. There are a number of interesting buildings along the waterfront.

 

 

 

The beach is notable for it's width, incredible number of restaurants lining the boardwalk and its length. In summer it must be a zoo.

 

Carol has made reservations at one of the best paella restaurants in Valencia, the home of paella. If you don't order the authentic paella when you make your reservation, you're out of luck since they demand a two hour notice and only make a limited number each day. If you don't comply, you're left with one of the many rice dishes cooked in a paella pan that other restaurants try to pass off as authentic paella.

Service is excellent. Pack and Patri take great care of us including a tour to watch our personal paella being prepared.

 

As a starter we try yet another preparation of pulpo (octopus). The Spanish are incredible at preparing pulpo.  This one is tender beyond belief with a new excellent potato preparation. We dove into it before we thought to take the picture.



 Patri, short for Patricia, serves our serving for two. This is the traditional Valencia dish with rabbit, chicken, livers, beans, snails and rice.

 

 

After siesta, we again took the bus two stops to the nearby department store for a free drink in their cafeteria.  It's rooftop site gives a good view of the Oceanografic.  They have a band playing on Thursday evenings.  Additionally we pass by a modeling tryout in process; observing a gaggle of backstage hot men and women. Sorry, didn't get any pictures.,

 

Alas, this is our last evening in Valencia. However, it appears there's an event causing the opera house to be illuminated.