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!

Visitors!

Last Friday saw the arrival of Rich's parents for 6 days, all of which absolutely flew by, and also the arrival of our summer weather.

We spent a lot of time in the sunshine, at the beach, in the park and in town and even more time eating and drinking.  It was a great trip!

I took a few pictures so here we are...

We went to Xativa on the Saturday in glorious sunshine .

The walk up to the castle is such a beautiful one but it was hot so we took our time and enjoyed the churches on the way.  They have some statutes set up for their local celebrations through the summer.

The huge G&T was very welcome after such a long walk!

We visited in October for the first time but I was thrilled to be back, it's such a lovely town and the view from the top of the castle is stunning. 

After a siesta we headed to dinner at Bacco (an Italian restaurant that sort of looks like a beautiful cave) and then for G&Ts at doce Gin Club where Jan, Les and I had to choose from a menu of 250 gins.  Tough work I'm sure you'll agree!

On Sunday we headed to the Bioparc for Jan and Les' first visit.  We managed to be there in time to see the gorillas being fed, which in all our 10 or so visits, Rich and I hadn't seen before.

I'm always fascinated to see what's new and the baby gorilla is certainly an adorable addition to the park!

I think they both really enjoyed the visit.  We  then headed to the beach for paella where I forgot to take any pictures and then in the evening (after another much needed siesta) we headed to the international Festival in the park for mojitos and a light dinner.

After our mojitos, pizza, crepes and sausages (not all together) we enjoyed the dancers from around the world.

It seems I only took pictures of the weekend, but we saw out the week by eating at some delicious restaurants and drinking more mojitos.  They really were the drink of the holiday!

I absolutely love planning for when people come to stay and then seeing how much they enjoy all of the great things we have here.  I'm so glad they enjoyed their week and now I'm starting to think of the things that we can do with my parents in 2 weeks and my friends Lucy and Olly in 3 weeks.  There's always something going on here!

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!

Restaurants- Lemongrass

We had wandered past Lemongrass on last Saturday stroll round the city centre and noticed both the cheap prices and the fact that it was packed out.  Both good signs in my book.

Friday evening rolled around and it seemed the perfect time to give Lemongrass a try.  I was starving, the lunch at school having produced a particularly revolting lunch.

Photo

The menu is simple.  You choose your base; noodles, rice etc (at around €5) and then what you would like with it such as chicken, tofu, vegetables, squid, the list goes on.  You'll pay no more than €2 for each topping.  Finally you add your sauce which is free of charge.  There's something for everyone- curry, sweet and sour, teriyaki, lemon sauce.  They also do pad thai and chicken tempura which is what we went for.

The portions were huge, the chicken tempura delicious and the sweet and sour sauce I choose was perfectly sticky and sweet without being overpowering.  The egg fried rice was plentiful as you can see and I didn't come close to getting through it all. I tried a little of Rich's pad thai (not something I've had before) and loved it.  The service was friendly enough (not something I've seen much of here yet) and very fast too. 

It's a cheap place to eat (our bill came in at €20 including drinks) and it's central location on Calle Ribera means it's busy and buzzing on a Friday night by 10pm.  They open until midnight Sunday to Thursday and 1am on a Friday and Saturday.  It's safe to say we will return.