Best Aquarium Ever

Monday we spent at the fabulous Oceanografic which is the part of the very modern City of Arts and Science. This was the most amazing place. We spent several hours there, left for a while and came back again in the evening to see some of it again and see the rest.
There are three specific highlights which blew our socks off. First we came upon the sea lion exhibit which contained two baby sea lions, slightly different ages with different mothers. They were all out in the open and we watched them all for quite while both morning and evening. In the evening there was real drama, as one of the mama’s ‘barked’ at its baby to come in the water. The baby paced back and forth on the rock clearly afraid of entering the water. It ba-a-ah-ed back at it’s mother. Eventually the other mother more or less pushed it off the rock into the water. A little later the two mother’s got into a brawl. It was really fascinating – much, much better than the typical sea lion exhibit.

The second great thing was the dolphin show. Larry wsn’t even all that hot to go. “I’ve seen dolphin shows before” he said. But not like this, as it turns out. There were 10 dolphins and 5 trainers in an incredibly deep pool. The dolphins did the usual tricks of retrieving rings, jumping, etc. However, they also pushed the trainers through the water, popping them back up onto the side of the pool and threw them up in the air. If the trainer dove down while being pushed, the dolphins continued to push it down and then UP into the air right out of the pool. The interaction was just fantastic. We saw the dolphin show twice and it was a little different each time.

The third wonderful thing at this aquarium was the tunnel which ran under/through a hugh tank (top right pic below) with all kinds of sharks and rays in it. There were just tons of fish in there. The rays would come across the top of the tunnel just 10 inches or so above your head. You’d swear you could reach up and touch them. It was a great way to view these animals.

This was definitely the best aquarium either of us had ever visited.

Upon leaving the aquarium we started out in search of a restaurant. We have had a great deal of trouble finding restaurants here in Valencia. There are tons and tons of bars with lots of people in them, but it is hard to find food. We eventually ate at the same place we had eaten at the other night and I had a fabulous hamburger (against my better judgment!)