Day 44: Valencia Day 3

April 2, 2025

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My fascination with the 10 jammer buffet breakfasts in Europe continues unabated. It stems, I think, from a lifetime of "privation", either eating at home or eating "continental breakfasts" in North American hotels or motels. For eating at home, it make sense that one is never going to assemble 8 types of meat, 8 types of cheese, 8 cooked dishes, etc. etc. just for one breakfast. And for North American motels? They think they are brilliantly advanced if they have a waffle machine that you can pour batter into. The exception to this whine about North American privation is the breakfast restaurants of Montreal, like Chez Cora, or maybe Victoria's Shine Cafe. But I am still impressed every time with the likes of the Turia Hotel, where we had our final Valencia breakfast this morning:

You could in principle buy these ingredients at a Cobble Hill, BC grocery, sort of.

But could you get this quality of fruit?

Beans and scrambled eggs are easy...but risotto and roasted vegetables not so much.

but grilled tomatoes and quiche is a lot of trouble.

See how many oranges they expect to run through their fresh orange juice machine.

Is wine a breakfast "thing"? Dodie says yes, if it's champagne to put in your fresh orange juice!

Our ferry to Mallorca only leaves this evening, so we have lots of time for a walk around Valencia. Of course our ultimate target is the old town Market, but there is lots to see along the way. This time, we put the camera in Dodie's hands, so we will see it as she saw it. Vamos!

Across the Turia Park from the hotel there is a Jesuit church - seemingly unused or maybe just not open. We will walk by it on the way to the University of Valencia botanic garden.

The graffiti makes us think the buildings may be disused.

We arrived at the Botanic Garden, too early - in Grampies' style. We'll be back soon.

The Quart Tower is a remaining gate to the old city. Serranos, El Mar, and San Vicente are the others, but only Serranos remains, in addition to Quart.

The back side of Quart. For a price, you can climb the tower and look out from up there.

Even ordinary buildings in the old city are attractive.

Like these as well:

This is the Basilica of the Virgin of the Forsaken (Senora de los Desamparados)

We stepped inside and found a service going on.

From the Desamparados you can see next door a seemingly ruined portion of the Cathedral.

and this is the tower of the Cathedral itself

The "ruined" section has very degraded statues.

The main entrance to the Catherdral is "guarded" by beggar ladies. Their signs both claim they need help to feed their two children, who are living on the street. Out on the square, there were other beggars with signs, all quoting I think, the number of dependent children. It struck me you might need three or more to make any money.

We were reminded about Pope Francis, and wondered if he was going to make it to Semana Santa. We checked the phone and found that his condition is improving.

In the Cathedral square (Plaza de la Reina).

Buildings around the Plaza are very attractive

Church of Santa Catarina - off the Plaza de la Reina

Walking toward the Market:

That iguana by my window would make me nervous!

I'm sure Dodie took this because she hates Iberian ham sandwiches. Once tried unsuccessfully, on the Camino, to feed one to a dog, it having been rejected by other pelegrinos.

That's the market building, with the colourful tiles.

One of several doors, this being not the main one.

Just as we are not over recording ten jammer buffet breakfasts in Europe, we certainly are not over the Markets. And in Spain we are in the heartland for fresh fruits and vegetables. Today with the camera in Dodie's hands, we have a new tour of the indoor market:

I was interested in the sort of cinnamon rolls, but Dodie wanted to show the sales girl interested only in her cell phone.

This man's phone is distracting him from the 1 euro shots of Valencian liquors.

Dodie's least favourite stall, but one that is most typical of this region.

We tried paella from this stall last time and found it not so great.

This sign purports to give the secret ingredients of Valencian paella.

We raised roaster chickens for years, and sometimes were asked to produce ones with yellow skin. We thought the secret could be feeding only corn, but that never worked. Maybe it's the breed too? Over here, they seem able to make very yellow ones at will.

The ceiling and end wall of the market building:

Lots of organic eggs, but we can't quite make out what the prices might be.

The Market was hosting a book fair to support the Public Library. But the titles were all in Spanish. Anyway, no room on the bikes!

Colourful chocolates. Nougat (turron) is actually much more commonly seen than chocolate.

Almost French looking pastries, but we bet they are not as sweet.

Nice looking cakes, including cheesecake. I was wondering where do they actually bake all this stuff?

Here is a lot of cheese, but again, this is not France.

Spanish terms for ordering your beef. Below was the Iberian ham guide, but that has been suppressed!

Dodie figured we should end with the fish, which form such a big part of markets. Since we are not big (or at all) seafood fans, the various offerings look exotic. One vendor, alone among many, had a no photos sign and pointed it out to Dodie. Rather than give her an argument, we just took our (non) business to the next vendor down.

They are hard to see in this photo, but the googly eyed shrimp guys called "Cigalos" are very interesting. I made a good clear video of them and sent it to the grandkids.

They had oyster tasters. My Dad used to buy oysters sometimes, it was 50 years ago, and open them with a screwdriver. I tried one - first and last time in 50 years!

Outside the market there is a vendor of large paella pans. These gas rings are big enough for cooking with the large pans.

We found a bench and ate this for lunch. The empanadas were chicken and mushroom.

We don't know the story behind this balcony, but notice it every time we are in town. Lots of people notice it too and put it on Instagram.

We returned to the Botanic Garden, and found that it is organized into many sections - by type and use of the plants. We tried to memorize the sign and to plot an orderly walk around, but in the end we just wandered.

We identify flowers at the entrance as "Bush Lily"

This is Bush Lily too, though we had been thinking Freesia

We set out into the garden, which offered walking paths and scenes like these:

As gardeners, we were interesting in this tree planting session. We have a bigger auger on the back of our tractor, but have only ever thought of using it for planting fence posts!

The guy with the camera must have been filming fish, for some reason. The camera was a fancy Canon, and I pointed out to Dodie that it was the same brand as hers.

Dodie captured at least one fish in there too!

We think its great that kids get taken on outings to a place like this. Later they were all sitting down and being shown some specimens. I was envious because (a) they could sit on the floor so comfortably and (b) they were learning stuff

Echium candicans, the 'Pride of Madeira', is a species of flowering plant in the family Boraginaceae, and genus Echium, native to the island of Madeira (Portugal, eh).

The cactus gardens:

Ah yes, the comfortable kids, and the lecture I can't understand.

Bougainvillea and Orange blossoms as we finally walk back to Turia Hotel to wait for time to go get the ferry.

This blog entry was written in the afternoon, April 2. We will shut down the computer now, and not come back online until sometime tomorrow evening. We will do that then with tales of our great sea voyage. Stay tuned!

Today's ride: 9 km (6 miles)
Total: 1,117 km (694 miles)

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