We were supposed to be there three days, but our trip planning was…well…I’m not sure it was planning.

Originally we were flying directly into Valencia, but for some reason the airfare was like double what it was to fly into Madrid, so we thought we’d fly to Madrid and drive down to Valencia in a rental car — because we heard it was only an hour away. We were wrong. It’s more like 3-1/2 hours each way, which meant a really long drive after a really long flight, and then in three days getting up at 4am to head back to the airport, so…we kind of screwed up and all we got in Valencia was that day and a half, but ya know what — somehow it worked out.

Just my big brother Jeffrey and me

The trip was a Christmas present from my awesome wife Kalebra — a trip anywhere in the world my brother and I wanted to go (basically, a photo trip) with only one caveat — it couldn’t be a place she was dying to go, or go again (so Paris was out. Heck, France was out. Germany was out. Switzerland was out. Most of Europe was out. We finally settled on Valencia, Spain (on the recommendation of our friend, photographer David Ziser) and he was right — it was awesome — absolutely my favorite place in Spain (please don’t tell Kalebra).

Below: I’m going to jump ahead in the story to share this photo below, taken with an 8-15mm fisheye lens at 15mm in The Cathedral-Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady of Valencia (also just known as the Valencia Cathedral). More on this amazing church later, but since I used a shot from it at the top, I thought I’d at least share one that’s not “grayed out” for the title page.

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