Tuesday, May 10, 2011

We skipped the show last night.  Pat & Terry went and they said it was a group named Opera Interludes that sang opera songs and that they were very good.  This is the first show I have missed and wished I had seen them.  I could have gone to the 10:00 show but was too tired after such a long day.  We did go to the Noordam Superstars and our friend Tony didn't get in the finals.  I think a big part of the audience was shocked.  I wish I had made a video of his performance so I could share it with you all.

I didn't say much about my tour yesterday and I remembered a few things that I saw.  One of the things that we saw was that there are people that live in cave houses.  Their houses are built into the side of the mountain and they live there.  They said that there are some people that will open up their homes for people to come in and tour.  I would have liked to see one of them if there had been more time.  There were also lots of orange trees and olive trees growing all over the place.  They also said they have the only dessert in Europe there and more than 250 westerns had been made there because it is similar to Arizona.  Not really sure why they wouldn't just make the movies in Arizona but that is what they said.

Today we were in Valencia.  We didn't dock until 1:00 pm so we had the morning on the ship.  We started out with room service breakfast (on time) and then went to the hydrotherapy pool.  It really felt good because my muscles were really sore from yesterday.  At 11:00 am we went to play bingo and I WON $322!  That was really a nice way to start the day off.  After bingo we went to the Lido to grab a quick bite before leaving for our shore excursion.

Our excursion today was Valencia & San Jose Caves.  We drove for about an hour to some caves.  This is what the brochure says -- Saint Joseph's Underground River is located in the town of Vall d'Uxio, inside the Natural Park of Sierra Espadan.  It is the most important tourist point in the area.  The cave was inhabited from more than 15,000 years ago (Upper Palaeolithic) as can be confirmed for the cave paintings and the rest that it contains.  Journey to the center of the earth, gliding along the still waters of Europe's longest navigable underground river.

We walked into the cave and we got into little boats that were oared through the water by a boatman.  We tried to get ours to sing to us but he said he couldn't sing.  There were 14 of us in each boat.  It was really quiet going through the caves.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside (unless you could hide taking them from the boatman).  After we went a little ways, we had to get out of the boats and walk through the dry part of the cave.  At that point I took pictures because there wasn't anyone there watching me and I put my camera up once we got back in the boats.  It was interesting, but at times we had to duck our heads to keep from hitting them on rocks.

After we finished our ride we got to take a quick look around the shops.  I purchased a book on the caves so I could read up on them more.  We then drove back to Valencia where we had a city tour.  They took us to old town Valencia and we got off the bus and had 20 minutes to spend there.  Our tour guide told us about a Valencia drink that was non-alcoholic and showed us where to get it.  I don't remember what it was called but it was made with water, nuts and sugar.  We all got a cup of it and it was very good.

We then got back on our bus and saw more of the City.  We drove by their soccer stadium and a Bullring.  We also saw several structures that Santiago Calitrava designed (not sure if I spelled his last name correctly).  This is the one that has designed the bridge for Dallas.

When we got back to the ship, we had to put our things through a security scanner by the port authority.  Somebody said they were looking for weapons.  We then had to go through a scanner on the ship.  This is the first time they have done this.  There were tons of ford cars and trucks there at the pier.  They said one of Ford's largest plants was in Valencia.

Tonight we had to eat in the Lido since we got back too late for our dinner time in the Main Dining Room.  We then went to the show  -- Garin Bader -- who has played at Carnegie Hall and the London Palladium.  We was really good.  He mixed his magic in with his piano tunes.  After the show we went to the game show "Call My Bluff" which is always funny. 

We are now getting ready to call it a day since we will be in Barcelona tomorrow.  It will be a full day.  We have a private tour booked.  They are to pick us up at 8:30 am and we will get a Barcelona Highlights tour and then they are taking us to Monteserrat which is out of town a little ways.  Then at night we are going back into town to see a Flamenco Show.