Now, if you havn’t Heard of La Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, then you need to check this post out.  This park or “city” is a futuristic masterpiece that pieces together new aged construction, a large scale aquarium (one of the better ones in Europe), art exhibits, sciences and history exhibits, an IMAX, and huge “lake” that surrounds the city.

But before all that, we needed a hearty breakfast to give us the energy for all the walking involved with trying to squeeze all the sights and sounds of this enormous park into one day.  On the way to the park, we stopped in to a small restaurant that we saw a few people sitting at the bar and tables, eating breakfast, drinking a bit of wine or espresso, and reading the local or national newspapers.  We stopped in and were greeted by the host – and part owner of the restaurant.  Actually, the restaurant is owned by a couple, the husband works the bar while his wife works the serving area.  I didn’t notice, but obviously there must have been someone in the back cooking.  We ordered a sandwich, water, and coffee.  The sandwich contained egg, sausage, lomo (backside of the animal – in this case, pig), and pedazos de panza (mixed pieces of stomach and lining).  The sandwich was REALLY good and sure was hearty.  I’m not big on eating a lot of meat for breakfast, but it didn’t make me feel too full or sick – like if you eat greasy meat at breakfast, hahaha.

A small plaza on our way to the restaurant & the park

A very hearty sandwich for breakfast

It is so nice to start the day with a cup of coffee...so smooth!

The front of the restaurant - the bar & entrance

You can play a nice game of darts in the corner

The owner took a photo of us. I guess that is fair, hahaha

And of course, you know if I see graffiti, I just have to take pictures.  So I took advantage, it is everywhere in Spain, even in Valencia.  But it looks, nice…or at least in my opinion it does.

I ♥ graffiti

As we got closer to the park, which is honestly, about 10 minutes walking from our hotel, we could see signs of large scale landscaping projects and local art…we knew we were on the right track.  The first thing I saw on the horizon was a large, egg-shaped building (El Palau de les Arts) that ended up being one of the art museums.  We didn’t go into that one, too tired at the end of the day, but it sure looked nice form the outside.

Cool metal work, getting nearer to the park

El Palau de les Arts

El Palau de les Arts @ an angle

Then we saw a lot of water, and I mean A LOT!  I seriously thought it was the biggest pool that I had ever seen, sadly I was mistaken.  People were in the water, but they work there.  I suppose they were cleaning the bottom lining of the pool.  But it was so crazy; you looked each way, and would see the water all around, as if the city were floating above the water.

Think of all this as one large pool, with buildings floating on top

There is A LOT of water huh?

The sign tells you the direction and the time it takes to walk to a building

You can see part of the Príncipe Felipe Science Museum

WOW...way to many stairs!

We headed to the IMAX to buy our tickets for a movie later on as well as the tickets to the entire park.  First up, the aquarium – El Oceanográfico!  Not sure why, but I really enjoy aquariums.  We took the stairs down into the main underground aquarium that housed different biomes – thus there were different species of fish in each large tank.  There were tiger sharks, sea turtles, sea horses, king crabs, stingrays, and divers cleaning the tanks, hahaha.  But there were so many exhibits.  There were outdoor exhibits for the otters, penguins, and large scale birdcage that you can enter to be amongst birds.  Yes they fly, and fly very close to your head…I made sure not to provoke them.

There were beluga whales, sea lions, and dolphins.  You know, that day was very hot, so I think I enjoyed the Arctic area the most…not so much for the beluga whales…but more because it was so cold in there.

El Oceanográfico

Downstairs to start our journey under the sea

The Temperate and Tropical biomes - map

Like a mini coral reef

Looking down one of the tunnels

Taking a photo with my new friends, hahaha...see you at a sushi bar later

Do you guys know where Nimo is?

The anatomy of a sea turtle

Jellyfish with a cool light to help you see through them

A seadragon...not as small as a seahorse

Penguins taking a bath outside

Turtles hanging out in the birdcage area

The bird is probably looking for someone to bother, hahaha

What a nice color

After we finished our tour of the aquarium, we headed to the main structure, the Príncipe Felipe Science Museum.  This was home to a large Marvel Universe exhibit and science exhibits.  My favorite was the Marvel exhibit…of course, who wouldn’t love it?  So this area had posters of old comic books, large scale statues of certain heroes (Iron Man, The Hulk, Spider-Man, Storm, Captain America, etc).  Within the entire exhibit, there are places to see how high you can jump, test your memory, test your speed, color in pictures, hang on an apparatus to simulate flying, and much more.  Oh, I was like a kid, I wanted to try and experience each exhibit.

The Incredible Hulk

Go Marvel Heroes!

Just like when I was a kid

Just hanging around

Projecting my thermal body heat onto the screen

An exhibit explaining how climate can affect us and how we affect it

After that, we were so tired form all the walking, that we walked another half mile to a mall.  We went to the food court, had a slice of pizza and then went to the grocery store.  We bought a few things to take back to the hotel for later on.  After that, we went back to the park so that we could see the IMAX movie @ the Hemisféric.  It was called, “Dinosaurs Alive.”  I believe I’ve seen the movie before, at Discovery Place in uptown Charlotte, NC.  It was pretty fun.  The attendants gave us these headsets that allowed you to switch between English, Spanish, Catalan, German, and French.  I listened to the movie in Spanish of course!

Jamón ibérico & jamón serrano

Filed under: Travel by Giancarlo Deleon