Another world

This isn't the best photo I took today, but it is the most representative. It did turn out to be a sunny day, after yesterday's clouds, so we started it by walking over to Valencia's magnificent covered market and having breakfast at an outdoor table. Then we caught a bus to La Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias, last seen here, and the main reason we wanted to return to Valencia. I couldn't resist taking yet more photos the minute we got off the bus; it's so irresistible. My spare blip is representative -- I didn't blip it because it's too similar to the last one.

Our target was the aquarium, the biggest in Europe. It costs a fortune to go in (27 euros each!) but you really could spend all day there. We arrived at about 11:30 and left a 4 to catch our train, having seen about half of it. I liked this part the best: the tropical and temperate zone. The tanks are huge, with an amazing variety of species in them (including human divers in some, cleaning and maintaining them). You can just sit and contemplate the living art displays to the sound of ambient music. We saw walruses, seals, sharks, (small) whales and penguins too.

We'd intended to go back into town for lunch, but instead we decided to try the on-site underwater restaurant. It's not actually underwater, but it's circular, and all of the outside wall is one giant fish tank with a shoal of hundreds of brilliant silver fish in constant movement against a blue background. Plus a couple of very small shark and some stingrays. Quite mesmerising, and the food was very good too. Special mention to the white chocolate soup with an almond madeleine and mascarpone cream.

By the time we'd finished lunch, we just had time to visit the aviary, with (mostly) local birds in it; they are very tame so you can get very close to them and easily take photos. Some of them were quite spectacular, notably the fluorescent orange ibises. I will post a set on Flickr once I've gone through my hundreds of photos. There's so much more to Valencia -- it's worth another visit, but we won't have time before we leave here.