Spain Day Five and Six

We were up for another big adventure, so we headed to Valencia.  It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there from the villa.  First we headed for the city center in Valencia where we ate at a fantastic restaurant called Cappuccino's.  It was our favorite place to eat so far.  Aaron had a red thai chicken curry and I had swedish meatballs with mash and cranberrys.  Ok, so it wasn't Spanish but it was really good.  After we ate lunch, we searched for a hotel to stay at.  After walking around forever trying to find the Holiday Inn hotel, Elisabeth successfully spotted it.  We dropped off our stuff in the room and took a long walk back to the city center.  The whole siesta thing is quite aggrevating when you are a tourist.  By the time we got back to the city center all the stores had closed for the day.  I was disappointed because there were tons of cute clothes shops I definately could have spent money in.  I think Aaron and the kids were relieved though.  It started raining so we found cover at a closeby restaurant and sat down for some tapas.  Tapas are a big thing in Spain.  They are basically appetizers and there are a huge variety.  In the evening, many people elect to have tapas (sometimes going from restaurant to restaurant trying out the different ones) instead of a full blown dinner.  After that we headed back to the hotel.  The next day we took the kids over to the park across from the hotel where we road a covered 4 person bicycle through the park.  Then the kids played ontop of Gulliver (Lemuel Gulliver trapped by the Lilliputians), which is basically a fiberglass statue of a giant strapped down lying on his back for kids to climb on and slide down.  Then we went to Fallero Museo which is a museum where they put the saved ninots from each years Las Fallas festival.  Las Fallas is a festival held in Valencia from March 15-19 annually.  Organizations spend most of the year before making ninots, highly decorated figures used on floats in the parade.  At the end of the parade they burn all but a few of the ninots.  The most popular ninots are saved and put in the Fallero Museo.   After the museum, I wanted to walk along the park and take photos of some of the other wonderful buildings and tourist attractions.  The kids just wanted to go back and play on Gulliver, so Aaron took the kids to play while I did a little sightseeing.  Next we headed out to find Valencia beach, but we were misguided all over the city by the TomTom.  Aaron was ready to throw the TomTom out the window.  Finally he turned it off and was able to guide us to the beach without the help of TomTom.   The kids played on the beach while Aaron and I sat at a table next to them at a restaurant on the beach.  We decided to get the highly talked about Valencian Paella, which is basically a Paella with chicken and rabbit.  I have to say it wasn't great.  Then again we've also read that a true Paella uses sapphron spice which is very expensive and a lot of restaurants will substitute with a yellow number something generic ingredient.  I think this one used that.  After we ate, we headed back to the villa ready for another nights sleep.