If you haven’t already, you should check out my Instagram feed: @meghan.15, I’ve made a post about Valencia that has all of the intentions of making you wish you were there! I will also use my Instagram to update you when I make a new blog post.
My first vacation in Spain outside of Madrid was to Valencia, a beautiful beach city known for its detailed architecture and delicious paella. I left with a group of friends and we went through an organized tour given by “citylifeMadrid” (I recommend checking out their website and “smartinsiders.com” if you are in Madrid and on a budget). Our fun weekend excursion began Saturday morning, I rolled out of bed at 7 am, packed my bag with swimsuits and beach towels, met a friend at the metro and rode it an hour to the city center where we met with our other friends and hopped on the bus for Valencia. We arrived around 3 pm, checked into our hostel, threw on our sunglasses and left for the beach! In total there were about 40 of us on the bus with citylifeMadrid, we were made up of AuPairs, students, travelers, and people on sabbatical from all around the world. I mostly stuck with my fellow AuPairs because there were so many of us.
On the beach, there was beach volleyball, drinking, beer pong, swimming, drinking, oh yeah, and more drinking! My friends and I sunbathed, swam, ate too many cookies and shared lots of laughs, I didn’t want it to end. But the sun was finally telling us to put some clothes on so we went back to the hostel. We stayed at a chain hostel called “UP” and really enjoyed it, the only downside is that the key was an app on your phone that glitched a lot. Anyways, I was in a room of all girls because my AuPair gals and I made up such a large group but there were some mixed rooms. Our citylifeMadrid group took up most of the hostel and I kept a lock on my suitcase the entire time so I felt safe and stress-free.
Once everyone showered off all the sand we had some free time and left to get some pizza for dinner. We had a really nice walk to dinner where we passed the train station, the bullfighting ring, and lots of pretty buildings; then I found 20 euros on the ground! After we stuffed our faces with pizza, we headed back to the hostel to change for the club. We “pregamed” at the hostel with a bottle of vodka, a bottle of coke, and a handful of young people from all around the world. Around midnight we left for the club by city bus. The club was huge and super fancy. It felt like the kind you’d have a celebrity spotting at. With our tickets into the club, we got on a free shot. The entrance of the club had you walk by VIP lounges and then you were in the main outdoor/indoor area with an ok DJ and lots of people dancing, then you walked further outside passed several bars and downstairs to two different dance/DJ areas. One was hip-hop and the other was just wild and loud and sweaty. It was pretty fun but definitely not something I’d do every week. The cheapest drink was 10 euros… yikes!
We left the club around 5 am and walked for what felt like a marathon. On our way home we stopped at a bakery for breakfast/dinner/midnight munchies? Then slept for two hours before the hostel checkout time. We had almost all day Sunday free. We left to sightsee and ran into a train strike which was super fun to watch, we walked through a market, went into a huge church, saw a parade and people shooting guns in front of a government building (can’t remember the significance), we ate delicious paella. It was pretty dang difficult finding a place to eat paella with a group of seven hungover exhausted tourists who didn’t know what to order and didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Eventually, the paella made everyone a lot happier and we split into smaller groups. We walked around and admired the architecture and then stumbled across a big park. We walked through the park that consisted of runners, palm trees, lime trees, and happiness! My favorite part of the park was finding a BMX, parkour, skateboard, DJ, and hip-hop event taking place. After sitting in the sun and admiring people’s talents for a few hours, we walked back to the hostel and jumped on the bus to head back to Madrid.
It was a 10/10 weekend and I can’t wait to head back to Valencia.
