Spain, Chapter 1: Valencia

How am I going to leave this city? I started my backpacking trip two days ago in Alicante late at night. I woke up to an amazing view of a castle on a hill and to a narrow street with really cute houses. I took a 5 minute walk through the hilly centre onto the Mediterranean coast. Coming from Vienna it was unbelievable to be on the beach among palm trees and not having to wear a jacket in February. I got on the road right away and took an 11am train to Valencia. The third biggest city in Spain. It´s nothing like I imagined it to be. I walked through the whole city centre from the train station to my hostel and was on a natural high. It was a really sunny day, I had been been using nothing but Spanish, and the city was like nothing I had seen before. At first I had a strange feeling about it, like it wasn´t for me. But my mind has changed completely. Apart from the Valenciano dialect which I can´t understand (a dialect of Catalan, which is a dialect of Castellano or "standard Spanish"), I love everything about Valencia. Eating a traditional Valencian paella at an outdoor café in one of the many plazas, burning under the sun and wearing sunglasses in the middle of the winter, having tapas and sangría with other travellers in the middle of the day, getting fresh fruits for breakfast at the central market, taking a walk down the old river which is now a stretch of green space, being a part of the rhythm of the city, being pleasantly surprised by the juxtaposition of different architectural styles, getting lost among the narrow streets and stumbling upon cute shops... I´m not as excited as I should be for my next stop: Madrid.