When we woke up and got ready today, we headed down to reception where the free walking tour was meeting in about 10 minutes and waited there for the guide. When he got there, we went with him to the next hostel to pick up a few more people. His name was Duncan, and he was from Glasgow in Scotland. When we got to the next hostel Darren realized he'd forgotten his sunnies, so we power walked back to our hostel to get them, then power walked back to the group in a record 5 minutes! Lucky it wasn't too far away! We set off again at a much more leisurely pace and went to the square where the tour was starting, to wait for any more people to join, then started the tour. We walked around for a couple of hours past churches and other really old buildings, and got some really interesting history on Valencia and Spain in general. So much I didn't know about the country! (Did you know Valencia used to be Spain's capital?) Especially interesting was the stuff about Franko and the times of his dictatorship. It's crazy to imagine that such a short amount of time ago, the country was so repressed and unsteady. You wouldn't be able to be in public in a group of more than two people or you could be killed for conspiracy. Apparently during his rein he had a lot of support from people like Hitler, so with friends like that, you can get a bit of an idea of what kind of person he was! Absolutely crazy to imagine. At one point we passed the old silk market, which was a massive complex which was all walled off. They had some great gargoyles on the roof too. Most were normal, but there was one which was a human form, masturbating into a jar! Hilarious. And on the other side was a female one, doing the same thing. (No jar though!) Apparently it looks hilarious when it rains! From there we walked past the markets and down an alleyway where we were told about a local delicacy, the Horchata. It's a sweet milky drink which is made from Tiger nuts, (not tiger testicles, as one American once actually thought!) and we went into a little cafe and got a sample each for a few euro. It was really nice, I loved it. It had quite a distinct flavour, and tasted like something I've tried before, but I couldn't put my finger on it! From there we walked up a street where they had apparently found a heap of roman ruins when excavating for a new apartment complex. But instead of stopping the construction, they just built over the top of it anyway, and used it as a feature in the lobby! So we peeked through the window at that, then got to peek through another window at more ruins, up the road where they had a museum for it. Pretty cool. The ruins are always cooler than the real thing to me, it seems! We made our way around the edge of the city, past the city gates and got lots more information and history before the end of the tour. At the end, we tipped Duncan, them followed him back to where the tour had started to meet another guide, Meijo, who was going to take us on a tapas tour! We walked down the street with her and 3 others from the walking tour, and walked for a while to get to the first place. It wasn't really that close so at least we were working up an appetite! We arrived at the place, which was like a little pub and got a table. At this place we got a drink and one tapas included, which was a plate of bruschettas with all different toppings. I had the only vego one, which was a type of potato omelette thing. It was pretty tasty, but everyone was still hungry! When we'd finished our drink (something I can't remember the name of, but similar to Sangria), we headed off to go to the next place. We walked again for ages, felt like we walked to the opposite ends of the city. Twice! This next (and final) place was called Golden Gate, and we got a Sangria as part of our tour. It was really strong, apparently it's made with vodka! Then the tapas came out. I got a salad on the first round, and the others got something with meat. Then we got a platter of different bruschettas, then a plate of potatoes in a really delicious sauce, which was amazing. We ordered a jug of Agua de Valencia, which is a kind of cocktail made with Valencian orange juice, and it tasted like it had no alcohol at all but it was actually quite strong! We had a good chat and a laugh with the group, and the tapas kept coming. Unfortunately no more of them were vegetarian, so I was still hungry by the time we left! But it was pretty good value, as the tour had cost us just €8, and the price of tapas can add up quite quickly when you order them separately! We ended up spending quite a bit of time there, and invented a drinking game or two over a couple of jugs of Agua de Valencia! When we left, we started walking back to the city, and walked through a little section of a park on the way, which was pretty, then we said goodbye to Meijo and one of the others when they were going a different direction, then we walked with Josh and Nathan back to their hostel then went back to ours and had a siesta. When we woke up, we had a new room mate from Holland who had a guitar as well! We had a bit of a session with him (by that I mean we listened while he played us some songs!) which was really cool. He was into country music and that kind of thing, and played us some pretty nice tunes. After that he was heading to bed as he had an early start, and we went out to find some food. We found a little place up the road in a nice pretty alleyway and got some tapas of patatas bravas, grilled veggies and tomato bread. I was pretty full by the end of that, as Darren wasn't very hungry so I ate most of it! Although it cost us about €18 all up!! (See what I mean that tapas really adds up?!) After that we went back to the hostel, bought some water and went back to bed.