Snowbirds in Europe 2019: Beachin’ It

Monday, January 28, 2019 – We’ve had three days of lovely weather here: sunny, with temps forecast at 19C or 20C but going higher. We rode bikes down to the water Friday and Saturday.

On Friday, we grabbed Valenbisi bikes on Peris y Valero (major east-west artery with bike path a couple of blocks over from our flat) and rode right to the beach, dropping the bikes near the Neptuno Hotel. The season’s first sand castle builder was out with an elaborate architecture of spires and battlements. We remember coming to the beach in January the first two times we were here – 2011 and 2012 – and it was almost empty, even on nice days. Later in the year, it wasn’t even as busy as it was this Friday. There were several games of beach volleyball going on, people sunbathing, surfers in the water, lots of walkers and cyclists. The bars and restaurants were busy. It’s not hard to see that tourism is picking up here. We’re also hearing more English spoken in the streets – Valencia region apparently has the largest expat British community in Spain – and more Russian too.

We walked along the promenade almost to the end, stopped for refreshment at a bar-restaurant across from the beach, and ended up staying for almost an hour, reading and watching the passing foot traffic. There was a guy with his kids flying a kite on the sand in front of us. The Dad was controlling the strings – it was clearly his toy. When I looked up at one point, one of the kids had completely lost interest and was just staring off into the distance. Don't blame him. It can’t be much fun if all you can do is watch your Dad fly the thing. An accordionist with a little amplifier tied to his bicycle came and played a couple of cheesy tunes, then went around asking for money. I felt mean not giving him any, especially since I couldn’t help tapping my feet to the music. The bar was expensive: €11 for two small beers and a glass of wine – €4 each for the beer! We’d paid less than €2 for a larger beer in Ruzafa a few days before. We walked back along the promenade and took the tram and subway home. Nice afternoon.

Saturday was almost as nice. We rode to the Grau tram stop near the Americas Cup complex, dropped our bikes at the Valenbisi station and walked into Cabanyal. This is the old fisherman’s barrio, with tiny houses on streets running parallel to the water. Small-time commercial fishing has pretty much disappeared and Cabanyal is now just a poor but characterful neighbourhood. There are some signs of gentrification, with the odd nicely renovated house, but there is also a lot of it that looks like slum.

Cabanyal

It was lunch time (for the Spaniards – we’d already had ours) and the streets were all but deserted. We came upon the odd restaurant with people sitting out. At one, there was a raucous party, with singing and dancing, but mostly it was pretty quiet. Cabanyal is a bit hit-and-miss visually. Sometimes, if you pick the right streets and the right time of day, you see interesting architecture – little houses with gaudily tiled fronts, for example – and lots of people about. On other occasions we’ve heard flamenco guitar wafting from inside the houses or, on one occasion, played by a guy sitting on his doorstep. But this day, it was a bust. We wandered for half an hour but didn’t see anything very inspiring.

Cabanyal

So we walked the few blocks down to the beach – a totally different atmosphere – and walked back towards the marina. There is a long pier, or breakwater, that runs out from the southern end of the beach into the harbour. It goes out a little over a kilometer. We walked on the raised promenade as far as we could go, past a new restaurant/beach club. There was a big Maersk container ship docked near the end – not sure why it was there rather than in the container port a little further south. At the end of the promenade, we went down the stairs to ground level and walked back through the marina, past the rows of yachts and motor launches. Everything is more built-up here now – more restaurants in the marina, more bars, more paddle board rental places and sailing schools.

The beach on a Saturday in January

Maersk container ship at dock

Vel e Vent (Sail and Wind) building - left over from 2007 Americas Cup

We walked back almost as far as the old Port of Valencia building and checked out the cool new – since we were last here – sculpture of a sombrero-covered faceless head. Then we walked back up to Grau and caught the tram and then the subway home.

Sunday was another beauty – mostly sunny, 19-22C. We had lunch at home, then rode bikes from Ruzafa through the centre and down the bike path that runs along Carrer de Guillem de Castro, all the way to IVAM, the modern art museum. It’s free admission on Sunday. We’re slowly chipping away at the current exhibitions – of which there are four.

IVAM exhibit banner

IVAM porch

Today we decided on the “Inhabiting the Mediterranean” show, an elaborate, ambitious look at the ideal and reality of the Mediterranean experience – very political, very critical of modernity, of northern European colonization of southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The works on display are mostly contemporary photos, installations, drawings and paintings by artists from all over Europe and the Middle East. I liked some of the photography very much, the other stuff not so. There were also some ancient artifacts related to the themes. I think I enjoyed reading the very thoughtful curatorial notes, which had been translated into quite good English, as much or more than the actual art.

Yazan Khalili: large-scale hand-painted black and white photograph - lead image for exhibit

We walked back through Carmén and found more great street art. I would spend all my time in this neighbourhood – it's certainly the most interesting visually, with its narrow streets and alleys, and wall murals. It's a bit decrepit in places, but I've never felt anything but perfectly safe. Mind you, we don't often wander around here at night.

We came on one huge block that had been demolished. It looked like they were starting to build something else, or getting ready to start. In the meantime – and this is typical of Valencia – the street artists had invaded the building site and decorated the exposed walls of adjacent buildings.

The thing about the narrow streets is that you're continually coming around corners and finding unexpected vistas - wall murals or ancient buildings looming up.

Catholic University of Valencia

We walked back through the centre, by the central market and into city hall square. There had been what looked like some kind of organic food fair going on. The tents were all being being torn down when we got there, but the streets around the square were still closed to traffic, and there was a drum band performing for a small crowd. We didn’t linger.