Day 100/101 - Valencia & Oceanografic

We hope you were able to take our fun little quiz that we created to celebrate our 100th day of traveling.  Now back to our daily stories for days 100 and 101 combined.

   

Paella

We had heard that Valencia is the birth place of Paella, so we knew that we must find a good restaurant and give this famous Spanish dish another chance (we had tried it on 2 other occasions and though it was good we were not huge fans).  To our surprise, most of the highly reviewed restaurants for this dish were only open for lunch (2:00-5:00PM).  We finally ended up at Bodego de la Sarieta.  I love the location of this restaurant, it is on a narrow, pedestrian only (and sometimes a rogue motorcycle) street with outside seating available.  We ordered two different types of Paellas, one with seafood and the other with meat.  Although the quality was incredibly better than what we had had in Barcelona, we still are not big fans of this dish (sorry Paella lovers). 

Oceanografic - Europe's Largest Aquarium

The next day, we decided to check out the largest aquarium in Europe, Oceanografic, before heading to our next destination.  

Don't let the admission price deter you from visiting this amazing venue.  It has a lot to offer, and if you are in or near Valencia with or without kids, you should definitely stop by for a few hours.

We saw some remarkable starfish. 

In the Wetlands we saw some really interesting birds.

Ah the Jellyfish, Warty Comb Jelly, and seahorses dazzled us.

We loved walking through the fish tunnel and spotting different kinds of fish.  The Green Moray was one of the most peculiar ones.

But nothing could beat the sharks! To be able to walk in a tunnel with sharks swimming right above you! What a thrill :)

Riogordo

We enjoyed the aquarium so much that we ended up staying longer than planned.  We arrived in Riogordo well after dark, which probably was not the best thing considering this is a very small town and there are not many, if any street lights! 

Thankfully, after being confused for a while and driving on some scary and windy mountain roads, 2 older Spanish men came to our rescue.  Despite speaking no English, they were more than willing to spend time and help us out.  It was really so very kind and I was really touched by how much they wanted to help us.  Eventually, when they realized where we need to go, instead of just giving us directions (which we probably would not have understood anyways), they got in their car and asked us to follow them.  They brought us right in front of the house and asked to make sure if we were OK before leaving us :) 

Hurray for kind people.  We will remember to pay it forward.