The Good and the Bad

Sunday, January 6, 2019 – Yesterday (Sunday) was absolutely gorgeous. Last night was a nightmare.

The day dawned sunny, with a promise of temperatures in the high teens. We lazed around the apartment all morning, ate lunch, then went for an afternoon-long walk to reacquaint ourselves with the city. We headed down Centelles from the apartment to King of Valencia Avenue and then over to the King’s Bridge. It’s one of my favourite bridges in the city, mainly because it’s guarded by scary modernist gryphons. I can’t resist trying to photograph them, never with much success. Here’s my latest attempt.

One of four gryphons by sculptor Joan Martí guarding the Pont del Regne

We walked down the ramp into the Turia River park system here. Development on the park began in the 1960s when the Valencia Communitat, in a gob-smackingly ambitious engineering project, rerouted the river to a man-made channel in the near suburbs. The river had often flooded. One of the worst floods, in the late 1950s, cost many lives. The city had had enough. Today, there are miles of parkland, playing fields and gardens in the dry river bed. And at the end near the sea, there’s City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia’s fabulous museum and entertainment complex with its eye-popping modernist architecture. That’s where we were headed this day.

The huge Gulliver’s Travels-themed playground at the King’s Bridge was open, but surprisingly uncrowded given it was a sunny Sunday at the end of the holidays. Maybe everybody was home doing the family thing. I like the underside of the King’s Bridge here too – interesting converging lines, plus the rows of gryphon heads poking down. 

As soon as we were down in the park in the sun, out of the very slight breeze up top, we realized we were seriously overdressed. We had to stop and shed a layer – in Karen’s case, two layers – and stuff them in my backpack. After we’d stripped down, Karen was walking along in the sun, saying. “Yeah, this is my city.” It is nice to be back here, especially with this unseasonably warm weather. We just need to keep in mind that it is unseasonable.

The City of Arts and Sciences is still thrilling, even after umpty-ump visits. It’s the sheer audacity of the architecture, most of it by native son Santiago Calatrava and Madrid-born Félix Candela. Before we got in photo-taking range of the architecture, we came upon an almost-as-amazing sight – at least to a Canadian: a large rose garden still in glorious bloom. It looked like it was almost finished, and I’m sure it was intensively gardened, but so many blossoms still out in January is truly impressive. 

The City of Arts and Sciences is another photo subject that should make it easy to make great shots. But as often as I try, I’m never quite satisfied. That’s fine, though. I can keep trying. 

New sculpture in front of Science Museum

Agora and harp-string bridge

Hemisferic and Palace of Arts (background right)

Science Museum

We climbed up top to the Umbracle, a walkway and covered garden across from the Science Museum. Every other time we’ve been here there have been interesting sculpture exhibitions along the promenade. There was nothing this time. Still, a pleasant walk, with nice views down into the City.

Air vent from underground parking lot - Calatrava-style

Palace of Arts - the opera house

We walked back towards the city centre and, at the Music Palace, went down into the Turia park again. We followed it to the Bridge of the The Sea – Pont del Mar in Valenciá (the Catalan-like local language) – and went up again there. I continually call this, mistakenly, the bridge of Patriarchs because of the two  statues of bishops at one end. It’s one of the oldest of the city’s many bridges, dating from the 16th century. 

Bridge of the Sea...or Bridge of the Patriarchs

We ambled up Cirilo Amarós Street, past the Colon market, through the poshest of the city-centre neighbourhoods. The street is lined with designer clothing, furniture and decor shops, and some of the ritziest toy and kiddy clothing stores we’ve ever seen. (Note to self: do not bring Caitlin down this street!) Cirilo  Amarós ends back in the centre, near the bull ring. We walked back through the darkening streets to the apartment. A good day.

The night, not so much. 

Just as we were settling down to sleep, Karen, who had been complaining all evening about feeling “uncomfortable” – even while she was trouncing me at Scrabble – announced that she was not feeling well and was going to get up. What followed was a night from hell, for poor Karen, who was violently sick over and over, and for me too, because there was nothing I could do to help her. The odd thing was, she didn’t feel sick – no nausea, no fever – just cramps and sudden upchucking. We’re thinking it’s got to be food poisoning, but we’ve mostly been eating the same stuff the last couple of days. 

She finally settled about 4:30 am and slept until after 9. Her stomach hurts this morning, but she feels otherwise okay. She’s had tea now and one piece of toast and still feels fine. Our best bet for the poisoning culprit: the yoghurt in the breakfast buffet at the Edinburgh hotel the morning we flew down here. I didn’t eat it. We’ll see how the day goes. There won’t be any three-hour walks, that’s for sure.

Later.

I went adventuring today. I took a commuter train from the main Estación del Nord – about a 15-minute walk from us – out to a suburban station within easy walking distance of the Valencia Ikea. I went in search of comfortable pillows. Valencians, I can only conclude, have very broad shoulders. How else to explains the 10-inch-thick slabs of unyielding foam that pass for pillows in this apartment. We both woke with headaches and neck aches the first morning.

The place I went is a lot closer than the airport and costs less to get to it – €3.60 return, compared to €4 one way from the airport on the Metro. Google Maps, in its usual way ,made the walk from the suburban station to Ikea more difficult than it had to be. It took me over 30 minutes to get there. A good part of that was wandering around, trying to figure out what the directions meant. One Ikea is much as another. I was out inside 20 minutes with my two pillows. I just missed a train back into the city, but when I looked at the pixel board on the platfom, it said the next one was due in 4 minutes. Good service.

Back in the city, I walked down to the Orange store on Avenida Colón and bought a prepaid SIM. The very nice young lady spoke English and explained everything very clearly – unlike the doufus at El Corte Inglés on Saturday. I came back to find Karen dozy from napping. She’s napping again now. I hope she can sleep tonight. She hasn’t eaten anything more since noon hour, which concerns me a little. 

Another day in Valencia in the books.