off to valencia and ibiza

day 3


we woke up early and left hostel goya for our bus ride to valencia. since we were early, we went to grab some food in case we were hungry. we wanted to buy the breakfast set from PANS company but they were not opened till 9 ish, so we settled for this baguette store known as 'la baguetina' as it was the only store that was opened at that time. we asked for a chocolate croissant and a cured ham baguette, we were shocked when told of the cost. guess how much it was, 9 euros (about 18 SGD)!! WTF?! We were robbed in broad daylight! We couldn't say no coz we asked the person to cut the baguette into quarters so that we could share it easily.


lesson number one: Always ask for the price before buying.


we consoled ourselves by thinking that erm cured ham are usually pricey. but darn, we were definitely not happy about it and we boycott the store and even took a pic of the zhao pai (aka signboard)!

the shop which ripped us of our breakfast money!!

after that lousy experience, we took the metro and arrived at the bus station to board the alsa* bus to valencia so that we could take the ferry to ibiza. when we were close to the entrance of the station, mich suddenly remembered that 3 of us left our passports at hostel goya. we were like sian half. mich and me stayed at the bus station, cece and jenny rushed back to goya to pick up the passports.

group pic before we left goya

lesson number two: Remember your passports if you have left it with the hostel recept!!!

thank goodness we were early and that goya is only two stations away. it was like amazing race for cece and jenn, they made back it in time for the bus and we managed to get a cup of coffee before we boarded.

on board the alsa bus to valencia

the ride to valencia was about 3.5 hours and we needed to get to the port to check in at 3pm. we were actually quite late when we reached valencia. we were supposed to reach at 2.15pm or 2.30pm if i remembered correctly but we only reached at 2.45pm leaving us with only 15 mins to get to the port. we scrambled to find a cab upon reaching the port and managed to do so.

cabbie ride to the valencia port

luckily, the port was about 10 mins ride from the bus station. somehow, divine providence was on our side, we managed to reach the port at 3pm exactly! phewz!

ferry tix to ibizaour ferry to ibiza

ride with acciona to ibiza

donuts for lunch on board the ferry

it was a mad day of rushing, and we thought we could sleep our way through the ferry ride. but the sea was rough that day and it made us all uncomfortable to the point of near nausea!! even jenny and cece who took the motion sickness pills felt uncomfortable as well.

we finally reached ibiza, looking totally shacked!!

people waiting for their luggage, as were we

by the time we reached ibiza, it was sundown. i took us about 10 mins to walk from the dock to the port and another 15 or 20 mins to get a cab. there were 'private' cabbies waiting around wanting to drive us to our destination, but we declined not knowing if they are legitimate or if they will drive us to somewhere else. anyway, their asking price (30 Es) kinda turn us off already. we finally managed to get a cab and cabbie miguel sure was friendly and could speak a little english. it was an enjoyable ride and he helped us find hostel bartia too. we paid only 12 Es for the ride. we reached bartia at around 8pm and were all tired and hungry.

sundown in ibiza

host Maria was damn helpful and really nice, she waited for us to finish our chat with miguel and showed us to our apartment. we asked her where we could get cheap and good food, she mentioned to us that the pizza place just downstairs is excellent. so we went to 'over the top' for our first champagne sangria and yummilicious salad, pizza, octopus and erm i cannot remember what that huge curry puff looking thingy was called.

dinner at 'Over the Top'

yummy champagne sangria

our first dinner in ibiza

thereafter, we took a slow walk around town and managed to catch a live flamenco performance coz there was some festivities going on. stayed a short while till the performance ended and we headed off to the apartment to rest.

flamenco dancer

*Alsa bus company: it's a good bus company. you can book your tickets way ahead of schedule if you are sure of your itinerary. you can also choose your seats! the buses are comfy and the rides are smooth. the buses are clean and spacious. they even come with a clean toilet. but the bus driver can be a tad sticky when you show your ticket to board the bus. so be sure to print out your tickets as the tickets confirm your seats. it would be good if you can print out each ticket individually as our experience was that the bus driver didnt want to let one of us up thinking that there were only three tickets when one of the tix printed out was halved due to the page length. by the way, the seat numbers are shown on the windows, maybe a bit hard to find, but just check the left and right corners of the window panels.