Photos by Nanci Blog

We check out of the Silken Puerta Valencia after a hearty buffet breakfast and board the bus for our trip to Peñíscola. (Game of Thrones fans will recognize Peñíscola as the city of Mereen from Season 5.) Again we're traveling through some pretty rugged terrain. We finally arrive at Peñíscola, a municipality in the Province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain. The town is located on the Costa del Azahar, north of the Serra d'Irta along the Mediterranean coast. Peniscola, often called the "Gibraltar of Valencia", and locally as "The City in the Sea", is a fortified seaport, with a lighthouse, built on a rocky headland about 220 feet (67 m) high, and joined to the mainland by only a narrow strip of land (Peníscola is a local evolution of Latin peninsula). The history of the place goes back to the Iberians. Later the town became Phoenician, named Tyreche, then Greek, under the name Chersonesos (meaning "peninsula...

We have a yummy buffet breakfast at the Silken Puerta Valencia . After that we meet our local guide Rosa for a bus and walking tour of Valencia. She tells us that there is another language spoken here other than Spanish (and some English) it's Valencian. For example they say Bon Dia not Buenas Dias. She also tells us the main industry years ago was silk. But in the 1800s a disease hit the Mulberry Tree then no more food for the silk worms. València is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona, with around 800,000 inhabitants in the city center. Its urban area extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of around 1.6 million people. Valencia is Spain's third largest metropolitan area, with a population ranging from 1.7 to 2.5 million depending on how the metropolitan area is defined. The Port of Valencia is the 5th busiest container port in Europe and the busiest container ...

We're up early and ready to leave the hotel by 9 a.m.. We have a long ride to Valencia but first we stop at Guadix   a city in southern Spain, in the province of Granada, on the left bank of the river Guadix, a sub-tributary of the Guadiana Menor. It occupies part of an elevated plateau among the northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada. One the town's residences has been turned into a museum and that's where we stop to learn about these cave dwellers. And we're not talking about ancient cave dwellers, people are living in these cave houses now. In fact, they have become quite the hipster thing to own. The museum shows how people used the space carved out of the hill to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Some of us hike up to the outlook above the village. The panoramic views are awesome. The cathedral and The Alcazaba. Stovepipes The Alcazaba still watches over the town. The brief visit gives us time to...