First of all.. do not be scared! I am confident your daughter will feel safe and happy at FSU and in Valencia during her year here.

You will probably want to stay here for about a week, given that you will be settling your daughter in to school and want to get to know the area.

The best way to get here is difficult to say. It will all depend on the airfares you are seeing online and whether price is important in this case.

Obviously, coming to Valencia by air would be the most comfortable but sometimes can cost over $200/person more than landing in Madrid or Barcelona.

Train travel is easy from both those cities, but you may want to rent a car for the three of you and tour a bit on your way down to Valencia. How long will your entire trip be?

If you are using FF points, you can have a free stopover in another country on your way to Spain and have a vacation there.

In which case, I would suggest Madrid as your destination because
1) there are NO TOLLS
2) you have some amazing sites to see along the way or with short detours.

You may also try to look into an open jaw (multiple destination) ticket to see if that compensates for either the arrival or departure.

August is very hot across most of Spain. I would save Sevilla for another time of year if possible, as well as Toledo.

Here is the Valencia tourist page.
http://www.turisvalencia.es/

I will try to think of something special for your birthday! Also, you may want an apartment with pool during your stay.

http://www.friendlyrentals.com/es/apartamentos/valencia/alojamiento-120.htm

Lucky you speak Spanish. You shouldn't have any problems!

Renting an apartment is a good idea, we have done that in Madrid, Barcelona and Paris and really like it.

We were looking at the map and temperatures and yes, Seville and Madrid are too hot to walk around.....how about driving from Nice, France all the way to Valencia? It's a total on 9-10 hours. We could do it in 4-5 days and stop in Monaco, Cannes, Tarragona. Then spend 4-5 days in Valencia settling our daughter. Seems like themperatures would be around 8o to 855 F....good beach weather!

Is this too crazy?

We hope to fly on FF miles but have not looked at details just yet....want to define what to do before we fight that battle

If you can get to Nice more easily and don't mind driving back ( rental drop off fees are quite high usually from country to country), if that's where you would like to go.. ( I am not really familiar with the entire coast of France. I went many years ago, but quickly to a film festival and don't even remember much of the towns along the way)

These are details you will need to check out.

It is a long trip and the tolls are quite high, plus gasoline is 1.5E a LITER. ( 6 euros a gallon).

www.viamichelin.com will give tolls and gasoline costs, also.

It sounds like you have some ideas of places you would like to visit during your trip here. Once you have looked into them, airfare, car rentals,etc.. you will be able to make a better decision.

sorry about the typos

I'm the last person you need to apologize for them!

Valencia is very hot in August and so it is beach weather but the beaches tend to get very crowded as most Spaniards are on holiday this month.If you have done msot of thebig cities in Spain then maybe 3 or four days in Valencia amd a day trip to Teruel or a two daytrip and include the beautiful mountain town of Albarracin staying the night there or in Teruel.It's a lovely mountain area much cooler especially at night and the both places are historical and fun. You could stay in the Parador in Teruel or plenty of hotels in the centre.

Valencia is wonderful! I went to school there myself the summer just before I entered college (many years ago!!) and recently returned for the first time, spending 4 nights there. Loved this smashingly beautiful city!

I wrote a trip report that you can read, if you want to plow through a lot of details about food!


http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/que-viva-valencia-wandering-and-eating-amidst-the-orange-blossoms.cfm

Thank you all for the input....I'm learning and reading to decide what is best. I am leaning to staying in Valencia for a week.

When you say Valencia is very hot in August you mean around 85F? I live in Texas

maybe more.

Lincasanova

We will spend a week in Valencia. We are thinking of traveling to Madrid and taking AVE to Valencia to have the experience....I'm sorting through the website to understad cost, schedule and any limitations regarding luggage.

Do we want to stay by the beach? close to FSU? Barrio Carmen?

THANKS!!!

We bought plane tickets so we are set to be in Valencia for a little over a week!

We arrive August 22 and leave August 31st. I turn 50 the 29th so we need to visit some special place that day.

Please suggest what to see including day trips.

Do we rent a car?

We are looking at apartments thinking we may want to cook a little.....