90 minutes in heaven, well, just about

Trip 5: Valencia, Toledo:

Thursday, October 7 - reunited with the now-very-familiar bus and headed off to the mysterious land of Valencia.

First stop: Lladro factory. Lladro (accent on the O) is a very prestigious brand of porcelain. We stopped at the factory and took a tour and saw how it's made. Very, very cool. I would definitely have the patience to do that for a living - for about three and a half minutes. Then chuck it out the window, I say! The detail was amazing.

After the tour, our group spent a rather LONG time in the "seconds" store - meaning they had all the "flawed" statues at a "discounted" price. I put these words in quotes because the flaws were completely invisible... as were the discounts... no, they were cheaper than the perfect stuff, but seriously, $200 for a porcelain statue? Please. I can find statues I like better at Hallmark in the mall.

Obviously, I have not developed a taste for the prestigious and exquisite.

Nonetheless, here's some of the pretty stuff they had in their showroom:

Hello Kitty grew up and got married

This piece - about 2-3 feet long - took two years to design and complete. It's the most expensive piece Lladro has ever done - I believe it's about $120,000, if I remember right. It's Nefertiri's boat on the Nile - Charlton Heston, go ahead and let your jaw drop, they didn't give you anything this cool in The Ten Commandments movie.

This piece did speak to my heart a bit.

As did this one. If I would have bought anything here, it would have been this statue. I feel they captured the missionary spirit really well.

After Lladro, we went on a walking tour of the city at night (thank you Dallin, for being our tour guide). It looked basically like all the other Spanish cities, so I won't bore you with pictures. However, we then arrived at our dinner destination - a fabulous paella restaurant. Paella is one of the best dishes ever invented. I refuse to come home from Spain without learning how to make it.

Friday morning: We went to the Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias, a fabulous modern museum near the harbor in Valencia. It looked like something out of Star Wars. We only went in the science museum part - it had a bunch of cool interactive exhibits.

There were pools of water all over. We all wanted to swim in them. Which is probably what prompted us to speed through the museum and go to the BEACH!!!

We spent about an hour and a half on the beach. The day was perfect, the weather was perfect, there was basically nobody there at the beach, the water was just barely chilly but still great, also super salty. I went out farther in the ocean than I have before - okay, so I haven't actually ever been out that far, this time, we were out where we could touch and sort of bodysurf the waves. It was a super clean and smooth beach. Basically, it was amazing!!

The seven of us who swam in the ocean - the others only waded a bit.

Saturday: Toledo

It couldn't have been more of a contrast - cold, wet, rainy, gloomyish... did I say cold?

Toledo is famous for it's mazapan, a kind of candy (marzipan? not sure) and also it's swords/blades. It's also famous for another cathedral, a painting by El Greco that hangs in a church there, and a large weapons museum. Store windows. Mmm.

Toledo

Tomb? of El Greco - famous painter. It was cold. You can tell. :)