Day 84: El Saler to Valencia

November 1, 2024

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The idea of visiting the Albufera has intrigued us ever since it was first put forward by Scott and Rachael some years ago. The maps at reception of our hotel in El Saler fanned that interest. On the maps, it all seemed so accessible. This is especially true of the stylized cartoon like version - the second one below. It looks like a giant fun bathtub, and something like the town of Sueca - in pink on the left hand side of that second map - seems reachable with just a few pedal strokes.

In truth, in the best of times, Sueca is 30 km from El Saler, and the road to there is ok but not the greatest. But now, of course, we have the reception fellow sweeping his hand along those pink villages at the top of the first map, and characterizing them as "gone". That puts a real crimp in our image of Albufera as a playland. And that police officer on the road to El Palmar yesterday, that waved us through? He was there to turn back anyone who thought they were going beyond El Palmar.

We had some thought for today of pedalling to Sueca anyway. But it has been slowly dawning on us that we could have been in real trouble at some points in the past week, and more to the point, that any more rain could bring renewed problems to right where we are. So we decided to use some common sense, and to retreat to Valencia.

We spoke to the man at our El Saler hotel, the "You & Co" about cancelling tonight's stay, and he was fine with it. He said the hotel had been actively helping people in the situation, from reducing its rates, to booking 40 rooms worth of aid workers coming in to help. As we walked with him to the bike storage, we noticed about twenty red cross workers all decked out in bright red, taking breakfast at the adjoining restaurant. And our reception man told of relatives of people at the hotel, still stranded and without supplies, on the west side of the lake.

The decision to retreat to Valencia was a good one, but it is true that the road - clogged yesterday with traffic diverted from the flooded roads to the west - was now clear. Today is a holiday in Spain, but the empty road was much more likely to be because the big trucks now had an alternative route.

Albufera had a been a bust, bird watching wise, but we still did see this one White Wagtail on leaving!

We took the beach path back toward the city. It really is a terrific ride.

That is, until we encountered a tree that did not stand up to the winds.

Coming around the other side of that tree, we see that like with other downed trees we have seen, its roots were not very extensive.

This rider is also detouring around the tree.

As we headed out along the seaside, we found the water filled with reeds and debris that must have come from the lake.

This shows how agricultural lands must have been affected, with produce swept to the sea.

I liked this mural by a seaside house. It was not a school, just a regular house.

Here we go back over the Turia. It is still not impressive here.

A pair of oncoming cyclists flagged us down, asking about what conditions they would find as they headed south. They were from Ireland, and therefore fun to talk to. Their destination this time is Faro in Portugal. When the subject of the Camino came up, we learned that they had done it 11 times. One thing they said, the Via Plata which departs from Seville and goes north, reaching Santiago entirely within Spain, is a good route. Gently rolling hills, they said. Maybe we'll try it, next time.

This sign caught our attention. A ferry to somewhere exotic sounds like fun,

Now again we passed by the City of Arts and Sciences buildings. We never seem to tire of their designs.

And again we entered the Turia park. We also never seem to tire of cycling up and down it.

We saw this Blackbird. We have been hearing but not seeing the Monk's Parakeet, the one we really want to photo again.

We returned to the NH Center, and easily booked in for two nights. although it was very early in the day, they said our room was ready and we could go to it. so we dropped our gear, parked our bikes, and set off for the market. Despite this being All Saints Day, a big holiday in Spain, the hotel staff assured us the market would be open.

Valencia has many big boulevards, that we have seen a lot of, but it also has a great old city center.

We first encountered the Lonja de la Seda - the silk exchange building.

We snapped a few desultory shots around the outside of the market, and trudged off.

What we trudged to was the city hall square - a large place surrounded by ornate buildings. It was here that we found out that GPS MyCity, which had been a trusty ally in finding and navigating around the points of interest in cities, had done a Facebook/Amazon/Twitter - by being useful and then looking for profit enhancing tricks that destroy the usefulness. In this case, GPSMy City suddenly was demanding $30 to maintain the functionality that had been free last week.

As we walked along the square, Dodie's speed dropped, until it reached almost zero. We had actually been counting on the market for re-fueling, but that fell through. There had been a good number of restaurants along the way, but perversely they were all offering Spanish food, like octopus, or rather pricey paella. We didn't find these attractive at the moment, and passed them by. So naturally a point came when Dodie just basically came to a stop. I took the bold decision of putting us into a Five Guys. This is another American fast food of which we had no experience. All I knew was that Obama had taken his secret service guys out to one, one time.

It took us a bit to figure out how to order and what their system was of adding condiments or things like onions or mushrooms to a burger order. We only ordered one meal, which seemed like a lot of food to us. I think, as "fast food" is supposed to do, it revived us so that we could carry on. But our diet of Popeyes's and Five Guys is starting to seem a little strange, here in Spain.

See those strange add ons you can get. Google Translate does not seem to know what some of them are.

Buildings around the square:

Statues on the post office:

We stopped for gelato and rather liked this flavour:

We had a look in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - nicely decorated.

The blue dome was particularly attractive.

This one building had an unusual history. The sign says "Refugio"

Here beside is the "refugio" restaurant.

We stopped off at a "Consum" grocery store for supplies. We thought it rather enlightened that they provide safe indoor storage for your bike. The sign is maybe a play on words, something about the environment.

We had a choice of bridges over the park, for returning to our hotel on the other side.

He seems to be training Jesus to be a carpenter.

This one coy parakeet watched us complete our 7 km or so walking circuit to the closed market.

Today's ride: 24 km (15 miles)
Total: 4,133 km (2,567 miles)

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John FlecknerAs your journey's end approaches, I want to let you know how much I have enjoyed your account of the trip and that I will miss my daily plunge into life on bike on the road. Many, many thanks and all best wishes for the next one.
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2 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo John FlecknerThanks for traveling with us. Don't leave us quite yet though, there are still about a week of posts still to come.
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2 weeks ago

Karen PoretMay your last days be better all around in weather, GPS, and adventures!
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2 weeks ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Karen PoretAs my grandmother would gave said, "From your mouth to God's ear." Dodie
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2 weeks ago