Seniors in Spain 2018: 7/20/2018-Barcelona-train to Valencia, Valencia, dinner McDonald's, Las Arenas Balneario Resort, pool time

I received an e-mail from Casa Batllo. They did not find my glasses and it's too late to try to track down the taxi that we took on 7/18 so I guess those glasses are gone. 😢 Reception tells us that the hotel breakfast is €8.80 per person and we should check it out. Hours for breakfast are 7:00-10:00 AM. Maybe we'll do something different for breakfast our last morning in Barcelona. We take the elevator to -1 and see a good sized room with plenty of tables. Several are occupied. Breakfast is buffet style/continental and there's a nice variety so we decide to stay. It's around 9:00 AM. Plenty of fresh fruit, cereals, 2 kinds of sandwiches-chicken and tuna, sliced meats, cheeses, pastries, juice, coffee. There's Spanish omelet, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage. Some types of cake. I end up having 2 plates of fruit, juice, coffee, a few pastries. Don't know what Richard had. He probably had fruit, juice, and coffee but other than that..........I forgot to take a picture. I think he made himself a sandwich with the meats and cheeses and roll. We both agreed that this was a good idea and we enjoyed our breakfast. Cost $20.66 total for the 2 of us when converting Euros to USD.

Breakfast room

Meats and cheeses

Fresh fruit cocktail, flan, yogurt, and juices

Pastries, rolls, and donuts

Cereals

Chicken sandwiches must be good as there's only a few left!

Tuna sandwiches

Fruit

Cake

Fruit

Tomatoes

Bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, Spanish omelet

Our train leaves Barcelona Sants Station at 2:30 PM and arrives Valencia JSO at 5:42 PM so basically this is a travel day. Taxi to train station at 1:00 PM. This is a large train station with lots of people here taking trains to all sorts of places in Spain. I need to make sure our tickets are ok as I bought them in Pamplona and it was difficult to communicate to the person what I wanted to get. I get in the information line and find that my tickets are good for us to go to Valencia. I guess my Spanish was better than I thought. Cost $112.06 for the 2 train tickets. We sit and wait as it's too early to line up for our train. I do see from the screen that our train to Valencia departs from platform 11. We eventually line up around 2:00 PM. Tickets checked and we are at platform 11, looking for coach 4. Find it easily. Stow our 2 larger pieces of luggage and find our seats, 5C and 5D. The carry on and backpack goes in the overhead bin/shelf. These seats are nicely padded like the other trains we've already been on and are very comfortable. Train leaves on time. The food/drinks coach is real close to us so I go to check it out. I'm surprised at what you can get to eat and drink on the train. I try to take pictures but the train is going too fast and everything's a blur.

Taxi to Barcelona Sants Station

Barcelona Sants Station

Our train tickets

Waiting at platform 11

Looking for our coach

It's a long train

Coach 4

Some of the items you can order in the food/drinks coach

Comfortable seats

Valencia. Capital of Valencia province. Founded as a Roman colony. On the banks of the Turia River. Biggest port on Mediterranean west coast. Paella. Las Fallas festival. Futuristic City of Arts and Sciences-architect Santiago Calatrava. City of flowers. Beaches.

We arrived in Valencia a bit late at just about 6:00 PM. Inside the train station I spot a McDonald's. Dinner! I'm hungry so I decide to stop here to grab something to eat. Richard says he's not hungry. There are order machines but I wasn't able to use my credit card to pay. I ordered a cheeseburger, small fries, and a small coke. Cost €4.70. Paid cash at the counter. Taxi stand right outside the train station. In Valencia the taxis are white. Our taxi takes us to our hotel.

Train station-Valencia

Our train has many coaches

Front car looks strange to me

Order machine

Tastes just like back home

Taxi stand

Hotel Balneario Las Arenas. I booked 3 nights here from 7/20-7/23/18. Cost 990€/$1108.16. Check in very smooth. It is now just about 7:00 PM so the day is pretty much over. We are informed that tonight in the hotel garden area is a open air market that has food trucks, live music. It starts at 8:00 PM and you buy tickets for the food and drink. We are in room # 144. Spacious. Bedroom area has 2 single/twin beds. Flat screen TV. Chair and table, desk, chest with several drawers for clothes, mini fridge, safe. Bathroom has high end toiletries, separate tub and shower. Not much of a view. It appears that our room faces the street in front of the hotel. We unpack a bit and decide to check out the pool area. The main pool is reached by going up a flight of steps. It is very large with plenty of loungers and umbrellas. There's also a smaller kids' pool. You can see the beach from the main pool area. We spend around 45 minutes at the pool. Back to our room we finish unpacking. I send a message to Dorie that we have arrived. Then we decide to check out the hotel grounds. There's an exercise room, an indoor pool, a spa. Large property. Can hear the music. Lots of guests taking part in the open air market atmosphere. Pretty water feature. It's a lovely hotel. I'm not hungry and neither is Richard so we decide to call it a night. Tomorrow we will just relax at the pool and the beach. Hopefully we can meet up with Dorie.