Valencia has some of the best methods of transportation that I’ve ever experienced. In general, Europe’s transportation systems blow America’s systems out of the water, making it incredibly easy to travel within cities, from one city to another, or even from one country to another. Cheap, high-speed trains offer a great way to travel within the country, while RyanAir, an extremely low cost airline, makes it fairly simple to fly to other countries without breaking your budget. And by low cost, I mean that I’ve gotten flights for under 30 Euros. This is such a nice luxury, as it makes possible one of my main goals while studying abroad, which is to travel around as much of Europe as possible, and experience different cultures and ways of life.

As far as transportation systems go, Valencia is definitely up to par with the rest of Europe. It offers a cheap metro system and a bus system that is cheap and has buses that run very frequently. The bus system is one of the modes of transportation that I use the most to get around Valencia, because there are buses that go to every part of the city and they all run fairly frequently, which means I can get to where I need to be quickly. In addition to an impressive metro and bus system, Valencia also offers an incredibly convenient bike service called Valenbisi. This system has bike stops all across the city, where you can pick up or drop off a bike. What makes this means of transportation even better, is the fact that almost all of Valencia’s roads have very smooth bike lanes, which make biking a great way to get around the city.

While there are some students that use a bike to get around Pitt’s campus and to go to their classes, the majority of the students at the University of Pittsburgh walk to get to class. I like my commute to class here in Valencia because there is a bike stop right in front of my Residencia where I live and another stop in front of my school here, so biking to and from class is very easy for me. For anyone that plans to study abroad in Valencia, I strongly suggest that you take advantage of Valenbisi, as not only has it been a great way for me to travel around the city, it has also been fun to ride a bike around and provides a good opportunity to exercise.