La Lonja de la Seda, Valencia

The silk exchange in Valencia is a complex of late 15th/early 16th-century buildings. It has a splendid pillared exchange hall, but for my blip I chose this photo of an upper room where my first impulse was to lie down on the floor. Couldn't understand why no other camera-toting tourists were doing this -- I suppose they weren't blippers. I wasn't that satisfied with any of my touristy photos today, but this is the one I liked best when I took it, even if it didn't quite match my expectations when I looked at it on the computer.

Earlier, we visited the ceramics museum, which is the type of museum you can only appreciate with a guide, because the labelling is very inadequate. However, as you enter, one of the staff immediately offers you a guided tour in English or Spanish (we chose Spanish for the practice). It's housed in a palatial mansion owned by a family in the 18th and 19th century who had loads of money but absolutely no taste; most of it is in a ghastly rococo style, with the worst items in my opinion being Meissen porcelain furniture. There were some nice ceramics though, from prehistoric through to 20th century, including a few by Picasso.

We chose to visit Valencia today because the Spanish Met Office said it was going to be sunny and 23 degrees. So we were a bit peeved when we arrived to find 100% cloud cover and 17 degrees. It had cleared up by the time we came out of the museum though, so hopefully it will be fine tomorrow.