Valencia

This chapter opens with the second of four overnight trains. Reed and I arrived at the Granada train station to board our 10:00 train to Valencia. This time, however, we were in different compartments. For most of the ride, the only other person in my coach was a Spanish man no younger than 75 years old. He originally had the top bunk, but upon seeing the look on his face when he considered how he would get up there, I offered to swap. I prefer the top bunks anyway. They come with a shelf for your luggage, and you need not worry as much about your things. He was a nice old man, and he offered to share half of his dinner with me even though I declined. He referred to me as ¨joven"(young one) and talked with me in Spanish for a while before the ticket taker made it to our car and we went to sleep. The guy who entered our car form a stop some time around 4:30 was much noisier and more annoying. But the train arrived at five-something anyway.

Reed and I met back up outside of the train, and we went to our hotel. The sun wasn’t up yet, and the Spanish don’t really get going until 10:00 at the earliest, so we were not surprised when it was too early to check in. Per usual, we left our mochillas and headed out.

Since the sun was just rising, Valencia was quiet and gray. Reed and I tried to visit a few sites that might be open in the morning, but most doors were closed before 10:00 if open on Sunday at all. Our first success was the obligatory cathedral. (8) (I am only counting the massive cathedrals that we actually walk around in inside. Since I'm traveling through Portugal, Spain, and Italy, it would be impractical to count every church we see. Reed, for one, can't seem to wrap his head around exactly why the Catholics built so many churches so close together.) Anyway, it was nice, but at this point in the trip, it had little to set it apart from the others of its kind. I’ve attached some pictures nonetheless.

We spent most of the first half of the day just roaming around Valencia and taking in the sites it had to offer. These were few, but they did include our fourth bullfighting ring as well as pairs of towers scattered throughout the city the stood as remnants of Valencia’s original city wall.

By lunch, we weren’t very impressed with the city. Though it is one of Spain’s most populous, it had little to recommend it. It was more urban than other cities that we had visited, and did not seem to offer much charm.

Valencia did introduce us to Catalan for the first time in our tour of Spain, however. Catalan is a language entirely distinct from Spanish with roots in the northeast Spanish provinces. At one point in history, Cataluña was a separate kingdom, and many people still identify with it strongly. The Catalan flag flies proudly in many places in northeast Spain, and everything is written first in Catalan and then in Spanish to prevent the language from dying out. The Catalan people cling to their identity strongly, and as a result, a particularly interesting mixed culture has developed in the region.

Having exhausted Old Town Valencia, Reed and I headed out to a more modern part of town. The area known as the City of Arts and Sciences was constructed in the late 90s. It features an opera house, a natural science museum, one of the larger aquariums in Europe, and a few other event centers. We didn’t actually visit any of the exhibits, but we did walk around the complex – which is widely noted for its striking modern architecture. It’s definitely a site to see.

We then hit the Valencian beach for a short while before returning to the city center for dinner and to walk around Barrio del Carmen, a trending “hip” neighborhood of bars and restaurants. For dessert, I finally gave in and ordered some gofres. Gofre is the Spanish word for waffle, and Spaniards love their waffles covered in chocolate for dessert. They were tasty, and in fairness, they probably make more sense as a dessert than as breakfast anyway. (I don't know how I haven't mentioned this yet, but the Spanish also love their ham. Though in America it is at best a fourth-place meat, in Spain, ham is king. Chicken breast is unheard of. Though they're generally stingy with any type of meat in their sandwiches, they'll put at least some ham in almost everything. I almost asked for no ham on my chocolate waffles just to be safe.)

By the end of the day, my opinion of Valencia had improved a bit. I suppose that the gray of the morning had colored my first impressions. It has a nice beach and a quaint plaza here and there. The Turia Gardens are also an interesting addition. Rather than sitting as a huge square in the middle of the city like other major parks, the Turia Gardens snake through Valencia for miles like a river - leading all the way to the City of Arts and Sciences. In fact, it was landscaped to replace a river after some flooding and re-routing took place. At least a dozen bridges still span over the winding, sunken park. It’s a nice feature in an otherwise drab city, and it allows people to walk throughout all of Valencia without ever leaving the park.

Nevertheless, Valencia is unlikely to be your favorite city in Spain. While it was a fun visit for a day, it does not have a great deal to offer. And if it weren’t directly in our path, we likely could have skipped it without missing too much.

From Valencia, we traveled to the Barcelona, a city in the very northeast corner of Spain and the last Spanish stop we would make before rambling on through Europe. You can read all about it in the next entry.

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More pictures of Valencia: