Tuesday and Wednesday, May 26.

We are in Valencia, Spain. We were supposed to have an excursion to drive through the town and then go to the Oceanografic Park, the largest Aquarium in Europe. Sadly the ship’s excursion was canceled so we didn’t get to see the city but we did take an Uber to see the Aquarium.

This city has an old town and historic buildings but it is also known for modern buildings and they take great pride in that as well. The aquarium was amazing. It had many buildings on the grounds with some outside exhibits, all were amazing. I went there to see Penguins and they didn’t disappoint. The small ones were ok but then 2 different kinds of large ones were behind glass and it had some snow coming down from the ceiling every now and then. Of course they had water with underwater viewing to swim in. There were about 20 of them.

We saw all kinds of birds but my favorite are pelicans. We saw large land turtles and even 2 very large turtles getting frisky with each other. What a lot of noise they were making, that is nature. We saw Beluga Whales, Sea Lions, Jelly Fish but not the dolphins. The most amazing part was the huge walk under tube for the sharks. There were a lot of them of all different types. I think I saw sharks I had never seen before. I have seen several walk under tubes but this was the largest and longest by far. It was amazing is all I can say.

Swimming and in the hot tub, as we returned to the ship of course.

Wednesday, May 27 see write up below.

Wednesday, May 27 we dock in Motrin, Spain at 10:00am so we had time to go to the restaurant for breakfast and not rush at the buffet before getting ready for our excursion. We choose to go to Granda, about an hour plus away to see another part of the Alhambra, a world famous city within a city. Last time we were on a hill close to it with a great view of the upper part of the city. This time we went to the Royal Chapel and then walked near the gardens and down a steep hill to the town. All of it is very old and historic. The town had some main roads but lots of houses on narrow roads. We walked many miles and saw lots of the lower town and several churches. We then had “free time” and ate pizza at an outdoor cafe with churros dipped in chocolate for dessert. Fresh squeezed orange juice to drink of course. Poor David, on our walk through town he passed several stands with orange juice as well as ice cream but when you are with a group, you can’t stop. That was hard on him.

It is difficult to get tickets to the Alhambra and even more difficult to see much on one day from a cruise ship. To really see it, you would need to stay in town and have several guided tours (hopefully private tours and not a tour with 30 people). Our tour guide was very good and gave us more information than I could absorb. At least we have now seen some of it.