We are taking a tour today with some Cruise Critic folks we’ve connected with as we planned our trip. Since we’ve been to Valencia before – and will be there again in a week – we thought getting out of the city and doing something different would be a great way to experience this area in Spain. Gabi, our tour guide, picks us up at the pier right on schedule (even allowing for a lot of stubborn security that would not let him drive into the area where the ship was docked). He’s adorable, knowledgeable and totally friendly.
We start off today at the City of Arts and Sciences, a futuristic city with thousands of photo ops! This city, containing the opera house, aquarium, Science museum and other buildings was built over the course of many years, from plans designed by Santiago Calatrava, a world-renowned Valencian architect. Gabi walks us through the courtyards and walkways past the buildings, explaining each as we go – and how each had some sort of architectural problem that had to be corrected either as they were being built or afterward (i.e, the external stair case to the science museum built to be used as an emergency exit from the 2nd floor; the ceramic mosaic pieces on the opera house that were adhered to a metal substructure, which expanded and contracted with the weather, thus breaking loose the tiles, etc.).
This place is incredibly futuristic with its domes and shapes and odd statues in the reflecting pool.
We spend about 25 minutes just walking around, listening to the city’s history and snapping pix.
Soon, we climb up to the living gardens above the city for a more panoramic view…
…then we hop on the bush for a 45 minute drive to the Requena region of Valencia where the local wineries are located. The cityscape quickly turns to country side, and before we know it we are in wine country. The fields are ablaze with color – what’s really funny, with all our travels, and all our winery visits, we’ve never seen vineyards in the fall. The colors are amazing!
We arrive at the Carrascal vineyard, where the scenery is just as lovely.
Our first stop at the family owned vineyard is the wine label museum, where the vineyard patriarch has amassed an astonishing collection of wine labels from around the world, all either displayed, or categorized in huge 3 ring binders lining the walls. Talk about a passion – and an undertaking!
Afterward, we tour the winery with Gabi’s translations. We walk past great iron sculptures..
We see the Cava room, where they now have bottle turning machines – we’d never seen those before either!
Then we tour the original family house, which is now just used as a weekend place. With it’s pool and lovely gardens,
the 100+ year old house looks like the perfect weekend retreat. If only they rented it out….hmmm…
Then we are on to the main event – the wine tasting! And what an event, they have put out a spread for us that is magnificent.
Gabi keeps telling us not to get full, we have a big lunch ahead, but the cheese and salumi and bread with olive oil and peanuts are just too good not to snack on while drinking some lovely wine from the Carrascal fields.
Happily wined and dined (well, snacked), we kiss our host goodbye – she is the sweetest thing – and make our way to the historic city center of Requena, a neat little compact warren of cobblestone streets protected by the 15th Century Torre del Homenaje.
We arrive at Mason Fortaleza, in the center of the city, and have the place mostly to ourselves.
We are here for a traditional Valencian meal, and Mason Fortaleza does not disappoint. Gabi explains the menu to us, and we all choose a starter, main and dessert. We quickly discover that we should have heeded his warning about not filling up at Carrascal. Oh my! The amount of food is crazy! I test out the Potaje, a stew-like creation with some sort of little meat patties in it (Gabi said it could be pork, could be beef, could be rabbit – could be anything – whatever it was – it was excellent!). Ed chose the soup and was totally stuffed (as we all were) before our main meal of Embutido (sausages) for Ed and Chuletas de Cordero (lamb chops) for me. Everything was cooked and seasoned to perfection.
Combined with the wine, beer and bread – we were totally stuffed and then came dessert! Tarta de Chocolate (saw that one coming didn’t you?) for me and Flan de Cafe for Ed. Now we’re almost sick stuffed! We need to hike about 8 miles to work this meal off.
We all roll back to the van, looking forward to the 45 minute drive back to Valencia so we can sleep off the food intoxication. Once in the city Gabi gives us a quick little tour of the one of the historical plazas containing the Cathedrale and I think the Parliament building. We take a few pictures, but because we are running late, we don’t dawdle long before heading back to the van and the 20 minute ride to the ship.
Back onboard, we make our nightly rounds and prepare for our next port – Palma De Mallorca.
