Valencia

No knitting update this time as I have just come back from a conference in Valencia. To quote my good friend Lee: "I'm so working class that a conference is a holiday". The conference was rubbish and the food was cack so when proceedings finished on Friday, my colleagues set off in search of decent grub and found a fantastic restaurant called "Saquhara". It was lovely - small with very funky decor (though the painting of lemons looking more like a shoal of sperm), the waiters were friendly and I had the best steak I've ever eaten. Lovely.

Now, I am reliably informed that, apart from the leaky opera house (Saturday 27th October, Guardian), the city is beautiful... however, I didn't see any of those bits.

The conference was held in a gorgeous hotel overlooking the harbour. Registration was held at the other end of the city, so we spent a lot of time on the Metro system underneath Valencia, missing all the sights. Around the corner from registration was what looked like a lovely yarn shop - stocking "Katia" and lots of brands I didn't recognise... but it was shut.

Still, here are some piccies, anyway.

This is the rather lovely hotel - bit of a Greek motif going on here. The buildings were built around a garden and two pools, looking out across the sea. Unfortunately, by the time I got the camera out, it had started raining.



Next to the hotel was a walkway running alongside the beach, lined with painted houses and restaurants.



Up the coast, to the North, we could just make out another city in the distance, and hills reaching into the sea.



To the South of the bay was the port and these cranes reminded me of the pictures of the Swan Hunter cranes on Jam-Mam's blog (All Stitched Up). When I was small, and before he retired, my Granda worked as a welder in the ship yards of Sunderland. My Mam used to take me with her when she went to pick him up from work and I love seeing cranes by the sea - brings out the nostalgia.



Also on the beach were sand sculptors and this was one of the best ones.