l'albufera

 The latest bici excursion was last weekend to l'albufera. The Parque Nacional de la Albufera de Valencia is a protected region south of Valencia that is known for the freshwater lake, diverse wildlife, beach, and rice fields. It's also where paella was born!

There's a bike lane or path pretty much the entire way to the park as well as inside the park, which is extremely important in safety and comfort as I've learned from biking in the past months. The entire route is about 15 km or 9 miles (check out the here). The bike path took us under freeways, along the beach, across the freshwater lake, and through the small towns of l'albufera.

When we were pathing throuhg El Saler, a small problem occurred... Sarka got a flat tire. Turns out there's a thorn that is common to the area, and Sarka was not the only victim to its tire deflating properties. Anyways, we walked into the town and approach two abuelitos to ask where the nearest bike shop was. (They were chilling on a bench eating sunflower seeds, and it was obvious that they frequent the beach year-around.)  Apparently El Saler doesn't have any bike shops. But, as it turns out, one of the abuelitos had a magic Mary Poppins bag that was equipped with all kinds of bike-fixing tools! We were extremely lucky to have his help. He whipped out a bike pump, glue, tape, and other tools that I have never seen before and fixed the little tear! He explained that because of the thorns, flats are a very common occurrence - that's why he travels prepared.

After our break, we continued further south to the lake where we went on a boat tour and saw nesting birds and heard jumping fish around us.

With Johan (from Colombia) and Sarka (from the Czech Republic)

With the bike expert abuelito 

L'albufera boat tour 

The lake

At the end of the day, we were treated to a beautiful sunset.