Oceanogràfic València
Oceanogràfic València is one of the biggest aquariums in Europe. Since our month in Valencia is almost over, we decided it was finally the right time to go. We decided that Thursday December 1st would be a good day since it’s a weekday, so the aquarium wouldn’t be that crowded.
We took the bus from our apartment to Oceanogràfic and got there around 10. There was no line to get in, which meant the aquarium wouldn’t be that crowded. The entire aquarium is part indoor, and part outdoor, with tons of different exhibits. We went into the entrance building, which sends you downstairs into a room with lots of shops and a bunch of different animals.
In the center there’s a short pool with some stingrays, turtles, and some smaller sharks and fish. There were some cylinder tanks around the main one that had jellyfish or medusas in Spanish. The jellyfish were all small and not dangerous. The room was very dim, so they sort of glowed which made them look pretty cool though.
On one of the walls was a big tank full of more jellyfish. Unlike the jellyfish in the other tanks, these jellyfish were much bigger. The small jellyfish didn’t have long tentacles, but these jellyfish had tentacles that looked like a trail of smoke behind them. Even though they looked a lot scarier than the other jellyfish, these ones weren’t any more dangerous according to the plaque of information on their case.
After we left the entrance building, we went to the Mediterranean exhibit. Like the previous exhibit, the lighting was very low so we were able to see the glow of the creatures. I really liked the jellyfish in this exhibit. They were small like some of the other ones, but they looked really cool in the dark lighting. My favorite one was like a mushroom with purple tips on its tentacles.
Another really cool thing in the Mediterranean exhibit was a juvenile octopus. According to the sign, this was the only place in the world where you could look at one. It was just sitting in a corner while we were there. It looked like it was trying to sleep, so we didn’t stare at it for long.
The aquarium has a bird enclosure that is right outside of the Mediterranean exhibit, and you can actually go inside of it! We had brought our raincoats to the aquarium because there was a chance of rain, but this was a good time to put them on so we didn’t get covered in bird poo. You could tell it was feeding time because of the smell of fish. Not only were the birds inside of the sphere eating fish, but the living fish inside of the sphere were eating the parts that the birds dropped. The birds themselves had spoon-bills. The birds were in a bunch of different colors; red, pink, black, and white. The pink ones came the closest to the people, so that’s what I got the most pictures of.
The next exhibit was the tropics. Like most of the other exhibits, there were a bunch of jellyfish there. Some of the jellyfish tanks actually had no lights, because the jellyfish glowed a bright green. There were also some that glowed bright orange. The other jellyfish were not very different from the ones in the other exhibits.
There were seals that weren’t really part of the tropic exhibit, but you could view them underwater from the exhibit. The workers of the aquarium were replacing the outer layer of the glass, and the seals were very interested. It was funny to watch their heads follow the workers hands as they cleaned the spot for the glass. There was one seal who sat under water for at least 5 minutes just curiously watching.
There were lots of other exhibits that we went through, but if I told you about all of them, we would be here forever. Instead of talking about all of the exhibits, I’ll tell you about the 4D movie we saw instead.
Oceanogràfic has its own 4D theater called the Mar Rojo, or the Red Sea. We had tickets to watch a movie about turtles. When we bought the tickets, we didn’t realize the movie was in Spanish. Because of this, there were only 4 other people at the movie besides us. The 4D effects were cool, like the wind blowing on us and the string that flapped around our ankles to make it feel like we were walking through a school of fish. The movie was interesting to watch even though we understood almost nothing.
My favorite exhibit that we saw after the movie was the arctic exhibit. I thought the beluga whales were one of the best animals in this exhibit. We were able to watch them play with each other from under the water, and it was really entertaining. They kept taking their ball toy from one another, and swimming all around doing flips and other things. My sister really liked the penguins though. The penguins are kept underground, so they can have a cold environment, and there was even fake snow. There was one penguin who was trying to catch the snow in his mouth, and I thought that was pretty funny.
The aquarium was a fun day, and I would recommend going if you’re ever in Valencia. I can’t believe that we’ve almost spent a month here. It’s also hard to believe that we’ll be back home in less than 3 weeks. We need to make sure we really enjoy these next few weeks, because who knows when we’ll be back.
