Lunch in Valencia

I had an extraordinary lunch in Valencia today. So extraordinary, in fact, that it warrants its own blog post, not a handful of tweets (no matter how much I love Twitter).

I also love Foursquare, and those who have known me long enough are aware of how fanatical I can get about my check-ins and how furious I was when the app was split into two. This, however, is not the time to rant about Swarm (which did improve a lot since its release). Foursquare got worse in my opinion - it's slow, buggy and clunky, but I still use it because we've got history, the app and I. I'm a Superuser Level 2 (humblebrag). Four and a half years worth of check-ins, ratings and tips are in there. I like making lists. And whenever I am in a new place and hungry, I use the app to find nice places to eat.

Foursquare can be a hit and miss for restaurant recommendations, since it's based on other people's opinions of them, and opinions are subjective as hell. But the hivemind works sometimes: when Foursquare is a hit, it's platinum.

That was a long winded way to say that I discovered an amazing place for lunch using the app today. I checked into my hotel in Valencia and, running out of time before places started shuttering post-lunch, picked two promising restaurants that were right next to each other on a nearby street. The first place looked too expensive even for me in the holiday-goddamit-I'll-have-what-I-want mood, so I settled for the second one.

Their lunch menu deal was a tasting menu. Imagine that? For 13.50€ plus drinks. No choosing dishes; they only gave me the menu to ensure I was okay with eating what they were offering. I just said yes and was subsequently presented with the following:

• cream of something soup
• tiny veal kebabs with tzatziki that was fresh fresh fresh
• a squid and vegetables taco in the softest bread shell
• the absolutely damn unexpected rice with green peas, egg and sashimi
• apple purée with cookie ice-cream and yogurt mousse. In a jar.

Never had anything like it in a seemingly Mediterranean restaurant, which it wasn't, turns out. Fusion? Asian? No labels necessary. I asked the restaurant manager, Catina, to reserve a table for me tomorrow night. I actually have a rule that I don't eat in the same place twice when travelling, unless I'm in some remote location that has no other options (like a few towns in Priorat, for example). I fully intend to break this rule tomorrow night, because if this was lunch, I want, no, I NEED to try their dinner.

No food pictures to illustrate the post. Was too busy eating.

El Delicat
Carrer del Comte d'Almodóvar, 4, 46003 València
963 92 33 57

European bus tours - no thanks!

I can never understand people who go on bus tours around Europe. It's not that I have anything against these people, or that I look down on them. Going on a tour is beta than nothin', if you ask me. However, I find that bus tours have too many negative sides that cancel the positives, which do exist, admittedly, but are too few to count.

Let's look at the positives first:

1) Affordability. Bus tours are usually cheap, because one bus can fit at least forty passengers, all of whom will be in one vehicle, stay in one hotel and eat only in restaurants chosen by the tour operator. Power of group savings go! Discounts and special rates are easy to negotiate at half-empty hotels and roadside restaurants, especially for large groups of people.

2) All you can eat sightseeing. Bus tours usually touch base at many and more European cities on course of a few days, so you will see the Eiffel Tower, the Big Ben, the Milan Duomo, the Vatican, charming alpine landscapes, the Mediterranean beaches and god knows what else - all on this one trip. I decided to count it as a positive, because it's time-saving and lets you closer to the famous sights of Europe, but...

Why would you want to rush anyway? Screw the Big Ben, if it means also taking in little Parisian streets, photographing boutique windows, visiting Versailles, haggling at a flea market, shopping like a real mademoiselle!

But I digress. I have always been and probably always will be advocating for independent travel and lingering at one place, no matter how insignificant, for days or weeks, but since we are on the subject of bus tours, here are their negatives:

1) The bus itself. You will be on the bus everyday and possibly a few nights as well, listening to the guide, trying to sleep, or doing nothing at all, when the guide stops talking and the marvels of the landscape fail to amuse you already. Your legs may fall asleep, and you will be jealous, because bus seats can never beat beds with pillows. There will be a lot of sitting involved in a space full of...

2) Other people. You may not like your travel companions, but you are going to be stuck with them for the duration of the tour, whether you like it or not. Auntie Marjory will be talking about her grand-kids incessantly while you are trying to learn something from the tour guide; Mrs Indecisive will linger at souvenir shops, while other tourists wait for her in the bus; Pete the Redneck will start brawls with waiters. Of course, these are sweeping generalizations, and your bus might be full of interesting, courteous people of all ages, and you just might make friends for life with them. The chance is there, but are you willing to take it?

3) Shitty hotels and mediocre restaurants. The incredible attraction of touring Europe on the bus is that it is cheap due to the group savings that tour operators are able to negotiate. However, if you paid 900 euros for 10 days around Central Europe, rest assured that Hilton will not be on the accommodation list. Tons of neat hotels (and great apartments as well) are found in tons of beautiful places, but they usually get full pretty quickly and many do not have sufficiently large parking spaces for tour buses. Hence, you are probably going to sleep on the outskirts of Paris and love it, because it's better than an overnight bus ride. The same goes for restaurants: unless you join a food-themed tour (around France and Italy, for example), you will be eating a balanced diet of bland food that is least likely to draw complaints from your unadventurous companions.

In short, bus tours are not for me. I'd rather find a nice apartment for 80 euros per night, stay in it for a week or two, shop locally, take transit around the city, visit everything that is there to visit. One trip - one place. Perfect.



Rent an apartment in Prague - here.