Day 69: Valencia Day 1

November 3, 2023

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Our pattern for visiting almost every city on this, and our other European tours, is very consistent. If applicable, we will begin by decrying the city outskirts, singling out traffic, car dealerships, and furniture stores. We will then head for the historic centre, where we have tried to book some sort of old and quaint hotel. We then look for the cathedral, and ooh and ahh over the height of the arches and quality of the stained glass. Then we take to the walking street and check out the gelato, noting the number of unique flavours, general quality, and high or low price per scoop.

But Valencia is a bit of a different story. For starters we are in a multi star high rise hotel, outside what might be the historic centre. And, in that hotel, we are on the top floor, making even the elevator trip a bit of a project.

In planning today's visit to the city, we settled first on the City of Arts and Sciences. This is a suite of of modernistic buildings begun in the 1990's . It includes seven major components: an opera house and performing arts centre, a sculpture garden incorporating native plants, and Imax cinema and planetarium, a science museum, a cable supported bridge, a sort of convention centre, and an aquarium. For this time around, it was not what was in the buildings that we came to see, so much as the buildings themselves.

To get to the site, we used a special and unique feature of the city layout. The river Turia used to run through the centre of town. Naturally there were bridges across it, with the first being built in 1592. But the river was have been prone to flooding, and in 1957 it made the error of bursting its banks. As a result, the river was banished and diverted around the city, leaving a dry river bed. This became the basis for the 1986 7 km long Turia Park, which contains gardens, playing fields, cycle lanes, and near one end, the City of Arts and Sciences. Since our hotel is on the edge of the park, all we had to do was to take one of many ramps down to the river bed level, and float happily along to the Arts and Sciences.

The wind storms have taken their toll, with lots of fallen trees or branches.

Bridges crossing the now dry river/park can be hundreds of years old.

A pope up on one of the bridges. It looks like Jean Paul II to us, but we would have to go up and check.

Some of the bridges are ancient and some are new.

The City of Arts and Sciences led off for us with a nice water feature, and then, oh wow, such dramatic modern architecture. For impact and overall feel it was much like the Olympic Stadium, that we covered in Montreal, or like the buildings of the 1967 Montreal World's Fair. Let's do our spin around, with a few captions, and then come back for an overall review.

The angular apartments in the background augment the scene.

We have been pleased on our tour to see school groups out enjoying some of the same things we have come to see. But this one was particularly joyous, singing as they came. The teacher seems to be really enjoying himself.

This feature, out in a fountain area, was designed to catch the sun. From other angles it was quite plain.

Incorporating plants here was a nice touch. Birds liked it too.

Rather than a mounted horseman or somesuch, they appropriately chose this.

Ok, we are back around, what do we think? Our first impression is that here is 20th/21st century man saying "Ok, so we see your soaring cathedrals, but how about THIS!". And for a time we have to agree. There is a huge amount of inventiveness and technical ability in these buildings, and the stuff that is in them is no doubt wonderous as well. But is this City of Arts and Sciences the city of the future? Well yes and no. Dodie will mock me for writing this, but it was rather sterile - by which I mean that there were no gelato stands. Gelato stands, fruit stores, bakeries - they could be put in, but they are out of place in this neighbourhood. Compare this to the model where the church or cathedral are at one side of a square, the city hall on the other, and the places between filled with banks, bakeries, butchers, apartments, etc. Where would you rather live?

These general questions about urban design continued as we left the City of Arts and Sciences and headed for our next stop. Our next stop was to see Pedro, the man from the storage facility where we will be putting our bikes.

To reach Pedro we cycled around the southern edge of the city, and nowhere near the old core. What we saw was an interesting version of a city, being neither the Historic model nor the Arts and Sciences model, though closer to the latter than the former. Here we had large roads and tallish buildings, but also bike lanes and parks everywhere. This in truth is the real Valencia, and it's sort of ok. And in this true Valencia it felt like in Santiago de Compostella - these cities doing their own thing, and they are seemingly unknowing or uncaring about the "jewels" of cathedrals or planetariums that they also harbour.

But also typically with pomegranate trees just sitting in the sidewalk.

We made it easily to the storage place - a product of being on bike and Dodie having a pin set in her GPS. It took about an hour to go over all the ins and outs of the contract - the payment for how many days and months, what happens if we need to extend the contract, the deposit, the door codes, what is allowed to be stored and not, the access hours, etc. etc. The most basic facts, worth recording here, are that the locker is 1.7 square meters, costs 45 euros per month, and will hold our two bikes and gear comfortably but without wasted space.

Pedro and Dodie go over which dates we are storing for.

Our next move was to cut back through town, now hoping to get a glimpse of the old town that is usually our first thing. If truth be told, quaint old city stuff remained coy and not that fast to get to.

A main square (Plaza de Espana) of the real city.

Before reaching anything like the historic centre, we hit a museum, with some Roman artifacts outside.

We did at last reach the main Market building, which is impressive, with a lot of tile work.

Despite the fact that the Market was beautiful and that it did have a lot of energy and activity around it, the view of the street directly adjacent reveals that we still have more of a modern open feel than of any sort of historical one.

Here also nearby is the Stock Exchange building, another of the must sees for an old city tour.

Here is another view in front of the Market. Interesting and fun in its own way, to be sure.

These ladies clearly thought the Market was photogenic. I thought they were, too.

Looking at the map of the old city, we see that we only touched part of it. That's good, because our plan for tomorrow is to take to our feet and to crawl (well, only at the end!) through the whole thing. Stay tuned. Right now we are building up our stamina with pomegranates!

Today's ride: 25 km (16 miles)
Total: 3,415 km (2,121 miles)

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Keith ClassenThanks for the tour of Valencia. Pretty impressive architecture!
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith ClassenIt truly was our pleasure. Wait for tomorrow, when we travel back in time to the middle ages!
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1 year ago