My Escapes Spain Valencia Frenetic Valencian Escape! Puerto Saplaya

Puerto Saplaya

So, I headed for Puerto Saplaya by foot on the sandy beaches of Valencia.
Once I got there, it looked even more beautiful than on the photos I had previously seen!

Puerto Saplaya is north of Valencia's beach, outside of the city, yet it's officially considered part of it.

No-one I asked in Valencia knew how to get there and, later not even at Puerto Saplaya did they know how I could grab a bus back to Valencia(!). I suppose pretty much everyone has their own car...

It's a resort town cramped with apartment buildings painted in vivid colours.
Lots of rental homes there (I guess), but in April it looked almost totally deserted. Apart from a few locals, I could barely see people there. Couldn't find a single bar, restaurant or shop to buy food or drink!

The water channels with boats stretch across the resort town's central area. You'll have to walk around to get to the other side of the water, there are no bridges.

One has to be extremely careful, there are lots of places (especially around the corners) where one could simply walk into the deep water!

It's a modern place with modern buildings containing elements of ancient and traditional Spanish architecture... I guess they are hyper-coloured for the sake of foreign tourists.

The entire Venice-like small vacation town looked great. I loved it, but I'd still prefer living in a real town or city. Somehow the artificiality could be felt everywhere. It was like a theme park.

And because it's so enclosed... I felt slightly captive.

It's not a large place. Several buildings surround the artificial lagoon-marina.
In NS direction is about 550 m long and its width (EW) in the central part measures roughly 200 m.

Beautiful pink flowers can be seen here and there all over Spain and Italy. Just like these below...
They form a "carpet" on the ground...

The cute dog seen on the photo below simply ran to me. Super cute!
I knew immediately that he'll become the featured star of my Puerto Saplaya article!

After checking out the lagoon and the buildings, I walked out to see the beach in front.
Valencia's vast beach looked a lot better than Saplaya's.
This was narrower with lots of pebbles and shells and... garbage.

Towards the end of this Saplaya experience, I noticed how far I had gone out, how far Valencia "really" was.
Well, Puerto Saplaya is on the outskirts. Officially within Valencia, but when you have to get there... it's like a neighbouring village.

Before the big walk home, I stopped by at a supermarket to buy some water... I had to "hike" across the long sandy beach again. But I really enjoyed it.

By the way: don't bring alcohol to the Spanish beaches, it's strictly forbidden! Fines can be huge. Some surpassing even 800 EUR (!).

Just south of Saplaya there was an ugly-smelling slum (literally) amid wild vegetation, where poor people lived in vans.

Their barking dogs sounded like they were ready to devour anyone who gets too close to them.

As for the deserted modern buildings... they reminded me of the Spanish real estate bubble and the terrible shape that Spain's economy was in at the time of my visit. There were plenty of these buildings (intended for hotels, apartments for rent, office buildings) that looked like no-one would have wanted them.

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