These are a few of my favourite things...

Gearing up to leave Valencia and begin a new adventure has me in a reflective mood.  I started to think about this post I wrote last August about the things that I was most excited to do when we first moved here.

I thought I´d look back and see if we did them all and whether anything else needed a mention as I look back on the year.


Living with Rich. It was brilliant and I am missing him now that we no longer do :(

Finding an apartment and making it our own. We found such a great apartment, and it´s sad to have to leave it.  As it´s right on the Riverbed, it´s great for getting out and enjoying the sunshine.

Learning Spanish. Well, that´s never really happened *embarrassed face*

Wandering through the Riverbed Park One of my favourite things about Valencia, we have spent many hours wandering and discovering new parts to it.

Getting to know my new class and colleagues.  My class were hard work to begin with, but my goodness they were fantastic children and I´m lucky to have worked with wonderful collegues this year too who I will definitely keep it touch with on Facebook.

Agua de Valencia (a mix of champagne, Cointreau, vodka and orange juice!) I´ve had it a few times and it´s nice, but not one of my favourite drinks.

Paella, tapas and sangria. You know what? I´m not a big tapas fan, but my goodness do I love Valencian paella.  I could eat the stuff every day.  And, I only had sangria once all year but I am partial to it.

Trips to the beach. Definitely one of my favourite places in this city.

Having our friends and family to stay and showing them round. Every trip has been amazing.

The Valencian fiesta, Fallas. Words fail me but maybe these posts will help...

So that´s what I was most looking forward to, but what do I rate now, after a glorious 11 months here?

The Bioparc
Easily my favourite place in the city.  I haven´t kept count (but wish I had) and I think I´ve visited 11 times now, and getting great value for money out of my annual pass! I change my mind all the time about my favourite animals, but it´s usually between the giraffes, elephants, gorillas and the hippos for me.

The City of Arts and Sciences
We are so lucky to have lived across the road from these incredible buildings which I never get tired of seeing.  We´ve seen 2 movies at the Hemisferic IMAX cinema, visited the Science Museum and visited the Oceanorafic many times.  This is a must see area if you´re visiting Valencia.

Walking, running and cycling
An odd choice?  Well I know you can do this in lots of places, but a year here has made me far more active and healthy.  I love being outside in the year round sunshine, and we very rarely take the bus or Metro.  I will certainly miss this in Doha.

Cheap wine
It´s local, it costs 1 Euro a bottle. Amazing!

Sorsi e Morsi restaurant
 One of our absolute favourites, they know our order when we walk in now.  Great food, very reasonably priced.  We´ve eaten here, and at their sister restaurants, over 30 times! Eek!

It really has been an incredible year here in Valencia.  I´m sure that our next adventure, in Doha, will also be amazing and I´ll be setting a blog for that too! I´ll pop a link up here as soon as I set it up, so you can all see how we get on!

My Last Visitors

I had another weekend of visitors, fun and frolics.  A spontaneous decision was made that Kat (my brother´s lovely girlfriend) and her parents would come over before I leave Valencia.  As Kat was returning for the second time and had seen most things last time, we relaxed for the weekend but her parents did a great job of seeing plenty of the city in just 2 days.

I was exhausted by the end of the week but managed to shake off a migraine just in time to enjoy some delicious food, scrummy cocktails and fabulous relaxed days on the beach. Sometimes you just need a couple of girlie days to chat and chill.  This really is the life...

Enjoying our Agua de Valencia.

Anyone for salmon ice cream? Anchovies? Tortilla?   Me neither!

 Just chilling.

 

The Umbracle, on our way over to Sorci e Morsi.

 

Mmm, limoncella. Not Kat´s favourite!

 

1am traffic jam at the beach.

 

 

 

Kat´s parents´first paella went down well.

Just another weekend in paradise!  I´m hoping that packing and cleaning won´t take up all of my last weekend here, and that I can find a bit of time to head back down to the beach to carry on topping up my tan.  It won´t be the same without Kat to chat to though, I don´t think we stopped talking for more than 5 minutes all weekend- I was even talking to her in my sleep!

Thanks so much for coming over Kat, it was a great weekend!

A weekend away

Last weekend Rich and I decided to use the voucher I'd been given my class at Christmas and have a night away.  We stayed in a tiny little village called Benissoda which was beautiful, quiet and very welcoming.  I didn't take any pictures of the hotel for some reason but here you have some of us on the terrace before and after dinner.

   

Dinner and breakfast were included and the food was pretty nice so it made for a very cheap stay.

Ooh look, I did take 1 hotel picture.  It was all very nice, very simple and modern and I loved it. 

Last weekend was particularly amazing weather (summer really has hit here) so we decided that while we had a rental car, to head to Denia (on the coast) as well to explore.  I'm so glad we did, it was a lovely place.

We stayed at the 4* Daniya Spa and Business Hotel for only €71 and it was the perfect night away of total holiday relaxation.  I mean, just look at our view from our room.

We really treated it like a mini holiday,as I badly needed to relax and unwind.  Lots of nice food, lots of wine and a few mojitos and G&Ts too....

Saturday was spent drinking and sunbathing by the lovely pool and then out for dinner while on Sunday we headed to the local beach, just across the road before a delicious Italian late lunch and the trip home.

I practically had to be dragged away from Denia as I could have quite happily spent a week relaxing at the lovely hotel and on that beach.  

We do have the next holiday to look forward to though as we have now booked Rome in July!  Roll on summer....

Party Time

Last night we headed down to the beach for dinner and drinks as Kirstie from work was turning 30.  I loved the restaurant, Atuaire, which serves amazing salads, delicious burgers and scrummy puddings as well as delicious cocktails. I recommend the Bellinis!

Rich's rum and coke was epic!

We then headed down to the port and danced our socks off at Lay Down.

We crawled into bed at 4am, early by Valencian standards, but after a mega busy week, it was definitely late enough for me!

Ben and Cindy's visit

Just a few pictures from when Ben and Cindy visited us last month.  We were lucky with the weather and enjoyed a very chilled out weekend of food and drink and loved showing them the city. 

We took them to our favourite paella restaurant at the beach and it is safe to say that everyone enjoyed it.

We got very lucky with the Valencia CF match that we went to on the Saturday night.  They played Malaga and won 5-1

I love Valencia CF matches, the atmosphere is incredible.  All in all a great weekend!