Review: Windstar’s Star Legend cruises Southern Spain – Days 5 to 8
Windstar‘s Star Legend threads her way through the Mediterranean, sailing through time itself. Millennia of Phoenician legends, Roman roads, Moorish courtyards and Spanish crowns as we cruise from Malaga to Barcelona. Windstar deliver warm and intimate luxury. A small ship journey that begins amongst Málaga’s palms and Picassos, pauses at Gibraltar’s improbable outcrop of red postboxes and Barbary Apes, then drifts towards Cartagena, Valencia, Mallorca and, finally, Barcelona. Each evening, as cocktail ice clinks, Bianca, the destinations manager, offers tempting promises of what lies ahead: epic architecture, local cuisine that tells history’s stories and the culture that runs through Southern Spain’s civilisation. Day 5 – Valencia As first-time visitors, we choose the highlights tour. Others are drawn instead to the kitchen, a masterclass in the original Valencian paella. Chicken and rabbit, not a prawn in sight. They gather herbs and vegetables from a finca garden, then focus on the sacred moment of socarrat: caramelising rice into a crisp irresistible layer. Valencia thinks boldly. After the devastating floods of 1957, the River Túria was redirected east, and in its old riverbed the city planted a dream of tomorrow. The City of Arts and Sciences rises there now. The structural white bones and sweeping wings
