February 20, 2025
Day 3: Valencia: freeing the bikes from storage
We stuck close to the Air France desk during the five or so hour wait for that last plane to Valencia. During that time we talked to the agents, to try to make sure that the plane would not be missed again. The thing is, much like in a train station, the gate is not posted until 30 minutes before departure time. And the gate closes 12 minutes before departure. Assuming then that you spot the posting of the gate the instant it goes up, you have 18 minutes to get there! Given the distance from the desk to the gates, this was not assured - at Grampies walking speed.
One agent at the desk took a kindly interest in this dilemma of ours. He promised that an assistance wheelchair would be there promptly when needed. But when the time came, he called Assistance ten times, but they did not produce an actual wheelchair, at all.
Lacking a wheelchair, the agent undertook to walk us down to the gate himself. When we got there, boarding had not started yet, a bonus. He took us to the front of the line, and had us checked through onto the ramp among the first. That was pretty nice. The assistance service is clearly a separate entity, and the Air France agents have little control over what they do. Even so, on the plane one of the cabin crew arrived with a tablet containing a form, with which she collected our whole sad story. The advice was to go for compensation, for the food while we waited, and for the taxi ride that arriving too late for the Metro forced. We are not holding our breath on that!
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Since we got to Valencia around 23:00, the Metro was no longer running. We had looked up some taxi services online, and they generally want 38 euros for the trip downtown, with payment in advance. We were not happy with the advance payment part, so we took our chances on finding a taxi on arrival. Sure enough there were lots lined up in front of the terminal building. The driver asked 25 euros for the ride to our downtown hotel, the Turia, and that seemed OK - less than 38 euros anyway. For some reason the driver also ran his meter as we made the trip. That ended up showing 15 euros, but a deal is a deal and we handed over 25 euros, just glad to have finally made it to the Turia!
For our past stays in Valencia we have kept returning to the NH Centre, a place that we stumbled on the first time and that we stuck with because of its 10 jammer breakfast. But this time the NH finally was asking more than we are willing to pay, so we gambled on the next door Turia.
The gamble paid off, since at the Turia the room was not only very nice, but the breakfast was , if possible, superior to the NH. Without trying to detail it all, that means not only a selection of multiple kinds of sliced meat, cheeses, and fruit, but a goodly number of prepared dishes like fried peppers and potatoes, and empanadas. There was also the mandatory machine squeezing juice from fresh oranges on demand.
Our first order of business for the day was to go and liberate our bikes from their storage ("trasteros") spot. We took the Metro from the Turia station, gratified to find it fully operational. Last time, in the Flood, it had been barricaded. This time, two euros each would take us on a straight shot to the station near the storage. In fact, we went crazy and paid 5 euros for a card loaded with ten trips, that we actually have no plans right now for using. Dodie chatted with the ticket seller in the booth and found that she spoke English and had been to Vancouver, or had a daughter in Vancouver - something like that. It can be a small world sometimes.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
When we got to the storage we took an extra close look at it. For the record, it was about 3 1/2 feet square, with perhaps 8 feet of height. It was just enough for the two bikes and some panniers, though we had had to take off the front wheels and to store the bikes vertically. We reassembled the bikes in the gloomy corridor of the unit, running into difficulty getting Dodie's Magura brakes readjusted to working order. But it was OK, and soon we were free on our bikes in Valencia, a much anticipated situation.
"Free" is not quite an accurate term, since as usual we had prepared a track back to the Turia. Even this short 5 km, that looks simple when comfortably seated in front of a bright computer screen, can be very confusing when out in the actual streets.
The streets in Valencia almost always offer a bike lane, a big plus. We did notice that the pomegranate trees in the sidewalk near the storage were bare. They clearly consider it to be Winter, though to us it is Spring or Summer, according to the temperatures we are used to from home. Orange trees, however, seems to fruit year round, so anyone wanting to make Valencia orange jam can just fill up on oranges by the sidewalk any time!
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 2 | Link |
1 day ago
1 day ago
We "freely" followed our rigid track back to the Turia, and put the bikes (for free) in the underground parking. The elevator from there went straight to our floor.
Dodie then spent most of the day reshuffling our gear. It must have expanded while in storage, because it no longer wanted to all fit in. OK, we did carry stuff from home, and we had amazon.es send two drive chains for pickup at the Turia. While Dodie worked with the gear, I did a quick check of the bikes. The existing chains were ok, so now we get to carry the heavy replacements we ordered, until we can wear out what we already have - probably somewhere in France in a couple of months. I also replaced my seat, with the old one ready to ooze gel through some rips. Interestingly, all four of our tires had moved from 60+ pounds of pressure to something around 30 pounds in the three months of storage. It shows that inner tubes do allow air to pass out, though slowly. We first confronted this when looking at plastic (TPU) tubes - but these are butyl!
It was quite late in the afternoon when we finally walked out, to the mall across the street. It's flagship is the "Cortes Ingles", one of the biggest department store chains in Spain. Inside Cortes there is a post office, and we went there to already "mail back" a bunch of stuff. We are sending it to Leipzig, in the interests of economy, though the 30 euro cost was no doubt more that the socks, gloves, maps, and such were worth.
The mall has a number of restaurants, but we went for some "home" cooking, meaning the restaurant back at the Turia. Dodie was intrigued by the "Iberian Prey" on the menu, and went for it. It turned out she was preying on some sliced pork, cooked with rice and brought in a very hot cast iron pot. My choice was also pork, covering some really excellent fries and stewed tomatoes. It was all much more than we could or should eat, setting us to talking, as always, about splitting a
dish. In this case, though, my pork had a nice smoky flavour, which Dodie hates, so we benefited from having two dishes to choose from.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 2 | Link |
1 day ago
1 day ago
Back at the room, we found we were both exhausted. It was the jet lag and not the 5 km ride and 2 km walk, thank goodness. Dodie was soon fast asleep, but I am staying awake to share the exciting day's tale here on the blog!
Today's ride: 5 km (3 miles)
Total: 5 km (3 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 12 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 10 |
1 day ago
1 day ago
For our return flight, we had been assured that bike boxes would be available at the airport, so we got there very early to allow plenty of time to pack our bikes, panniers, and camping gear. Yes, we could get bike boxes from the airline, but not until we had checked in—and we couldn’t check in until 3 hours before our flight. We were worried because it had taken us 3 hours to pack our bikes at home, with so much trial and error determining how much we had to disassemble to fit our bikes into the boxes we’d obtained from a bike shop. But the boxes provided by Air France were huge! Remove the pedals, turn the handlebars, and the bike would just drop in! We kept those boxes for years but never used them again.
1 day ago
1 day ago
1 day ago
1 day ago
1 day ago
1 day ago
22 hours ago