Valencia, Day One

First day in Valencia - I took way too many pictures and here they are:

Our first day in Valencia began with a long layover in the Madrid Airport following our overnight flight from Philadelphia.  This is the quietest airport I've ever been in, probably due to the unique curved ceiling design.  It's crazy but very effective.  The support beams follow the colors of the rainbow through the length of the airport.  It's really an amazing sight that these photos can't even begin to capture.  The light fixtures were also very cool.

This is an extremely low-budget trip we are on, but we're getting a pretty nice vacation out of it.  The plane was free (frequent flyer miles from all the expenses we had building our house), public transportation mostly, and AirBnB lodging.  And lucky for us, it turns out that food is very inexpensive in Spain too.  The first things we saw after getting off the Metro from the Valencia airport were the bullfighting ring and the train station.

We are staying in an apartment in the Ruzafa neigborhood, which is full of restaurants and bars, beautiful old architecture, and some rather brilliant graffiti.  It's an artsy area and a fun place to be.  Our apartment is on the 5th floor so we don't hear much street noise, and fortunately there is an elevator.  The owner is an architect who lives here part time and has his office here and rents out the two spare bedrooms. He's super nice, speaks excellent English, gives good advice, and keeps the apartment very clean.  It's been a great place to stay, and much more pleasant than any hotel that we could have afforded.

Here's our room.  It's small and simple, but very clean.  And we have the run of the apartment.  It's a great place to hang out, which a lot of hotel rooms are not.

The ad said "vintage apartment" and it comes complete with a skeleton key for our room!  Here are a couple of views from our balcony:

Although extremely sleep-deprived, having stayed up all night the night before we left on our more than 24 hour trio of flights, we were determined to go to bed at a "normal" time.  So off we went for a walk around our groovy neighborhood.  Here's some of what we saw:

Window selfie time!

Even the sidewalks and grates are snazzy!

Maybe a little Jameson will help us sleep

My tired toes

Our local corner store.  We walked in to buy water and the guy said "How about a samosa?"  So glad we followed his suggestion - they were SO GOOD.

This cafe is on the bottom floor of our building.

The foyer

The living room.  I felt right at home since mine is the same color.

Looking down at the street from the balcony

Origami birds in a bookstore window.

The hallway outside our bedroom.  Time to say goodnight.