Roaming the city

The weather has continued fine. We’ve done little of note, except walk the city and sit in the sun. It’s hard to keep the days straight when I leave it a few days like this before posting. They run together.

On Friday, we walked through the centre, where City Hall square was festooned with red paper lanterns in honour of Chinese New Year, officially celebrated in the city on Saturday. Any excuse for a fiesta in Valencia. Of course I took pictures.

Back door of Basilica, bishop's residence in background

We didn’t stop until we got to the Turia. In the park, we walked by two stands of odd trees that look like they’re in the early stages of pregnancy. The bark has little spikes. We see them every time we come to the city and wonder about them. My research today has identified them as “bottle trees,” apparently a catch-all term for a number of species with bottle-shaped trunks, like these. Among them are the even odder-looking baobab. (Valencia also has an African baobab in its Bioparc apparently.)

Turia Park - bottle trees

We found a bench in the sun and sat reading for 45 minutes. The sun was warm. Then we walked further along the Turia and came up at Torres de Serranos, one of the two surviving 15th century gate towers. If you lived here all the time, I wonder if you’d eventually stop noticing these local landmarks, or at least stop being affected by them. It’s still thrilling for me to come around a corner and see a medieval tower rise up from the modern city – and realize it's been there, looking pretty much the same, for over 500 years.

Torres de Serranos

Torres de Serranos

On Saturday, Karen wanted to walk over to Torres del Quart, the other gate tower. There was – is – a restaurant there, La Pizca de Sal (The Pinch of Salt), that we have eaten at a few times in the past. The first time we walked by it at lunchtime this year, it was shuttered. It looked as if it might have closed for good. Why else would it not be open at lunchtime? But it had been such a popular place. We weren’t sure, though, because there were still tables stacked inside. So off we went to investigate. We wanted to see if it was a place we could take our guests, who start arriving on Thursday.

We walked over to the bullring and then around to the tower on Guillem de Castro street, part of the inner ring road circling the historic centre. It was a good outcome: La Pizca de Sal lives on. The place was open, with tables out on the pavement in the shadow of the tower. They must have been closed for vacation earlier. It’s gone a little more upscale since we were here last. The menu del día was 17.50€, although that may be Saturday prices, which are often higher than through the week. The menu on this particular day didn’t thrill us. Still, it’s a possibility.

When we first came here in 2011 and 2012, it was a different restaurant entirely, a more casual place. The menu featured my all-time favourite Valencian lunch: a plate of really good fries, smothered in baked cheese, garlic aioli and bacon bits – a bit like poutine, only way, way better. Cardiac arrest on a plate. The last time we were in the city, in 2016, it had become La Pizca del Sal. We had a very nice meal here with Ralph and Pat.

We wended our way through the back streets of Carmén, taking a few pictures along the way. None of them is very interesting picture-wise, but each has a story. The Animal Farm illustration was just around the corner from La Pizca de Sal, on a long wall covered in well-executed murals. Some I had photographed the last time we were in the city three years ago. This one is new since then. We’ve seen a similar image of Napoleon, the Stalinesque pig dictator from Orwell’s book, somewhere else in the city.

The rabbit-eared space girl was down a blind alley that we walked right to the end of before realizing it didn’t go through. If you had to live in Carmén, a neighbourhood that parties hard, we’re told – nightclub central – this would at least be a quiet, if not very sunny, place to live. It would also be a quiet place for an illicit street artist to work, although your work wouldn’t be seen by many people.

I thought the brass door push with the face of a mustachioed turbanned man was interesting. I’ve not seen anything similar, certainly not in this neighbourhood, which is a bit down-market. There was one on each of the double doors. The doors look old, don’t know about the brasses. Studies of interesting doors in a city have become a photo cliché, of course, but I’m not proud.

We eventually stumbled on this dim little square with its bronze bust on a plinth of a man in Rennaissance dress. Who is he? Jan Luis Vives (1493-1540), a Valencian-born scholar who lived in the Netherlands most of his adult life. He wrote about the soul, emotions, memory and learning, and is for that reason known as the father of modern psychology. The Latin motto on the wall behind? “Patria dat vitam raro largitur honores ille multo melius terra aliena dabit.” The Google translation is gobbledy-gook. I’m guessing it’s actually something about honouring a native son who lived in a foreign land. Any Latin scholars?  

We came back into the centre and meandered into Plaça de l´Arquebisbe – the Archbishop’s Square. His palace is at one end, the Basilica just around the corner. It’s very pretty, and apparently a very desirable address. There are a few upscale bars and restaurants and we sat down at one in the sun, a restaurant called Abadía, and had a drink. I asked for a cerveza and received a bottle of very nice Alsatian craft beer. We thought it was going to cost the earth, but it didn’t. Possible birthday lunch spot? Maybe.

Yesterday, Sunday, I went for a run, down to the Turia park and back up Marqués de Túria. The boulevarded street along the river had barriers up and traffic was prevented from going on it. I wondered if it was something to do with the Chinese New Year celebrations, but that turned out not to be the case.

Later in the morning, we walked over to the centre. Xativa street, part of the inner ring road, was also blocked off and the street leading from it into the City Hall Square as well. This wasn’t Chinese New Year. I guessed bicycle race and turned out to be right. There were tents and a stage set up in City Hall Square. A rock band was playing. There were sponsored signs up about the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. It’s an annual “stage race” through the city streets, often used by the pros, whose team trailers we saw parked in the surrounding streets, as a tune-up for the higher-profile races and tours later in the season. So much I learned from Wikipedia, the all-knowing oracle.

We were headed over to the Plaza de Reina area, but were trapped momentarily as some kind of charity ride came down the race course and pedestrians were kettled behind the barriers for a few minutes. Karen wanted to check out the Almudin, the 17th century granary that has been converted to an art gallery. We’ve seen some good shows there in past years, and the place itself, with its frescoes high up on the walls, is worth a second look. The most recent exhibit ended the day before we arrived in the city. When we’ve gone by since, it's been closed, with no sign of anything new starting up. We wanted to see if that had changed as we couldn’t find any information about it on the web. It’s one of the museums managed by the city and their websites are generally useless. We had our answer: it was still closed up tight.

Archbishop's Square (palace on left, Basilica straight ahead)

The next itinerary item was the Palau del Marqués de Campo, back in the Archbishop’s Square. It houses the Museu de la Ciutat, the City Museum. There was a temporary art exhibit on with recent winning and second-place paintings from the annual competition of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia, the local art academy. It’s also a pretty palace with other art and historical exhibits. The competition paintings, dating from 2000 to 2018, included some interesting pieces that I quite liked. I was struck by how few were purely abstract. By far the majority were representational, although all reflected contemporary art trends and sensibilities. This may be the bias of the academy – art academies always have the reputation of being conservative – but I’ve also noticed that more of the serious contemporary art we see in Spain is representational than is the case at home.

Kepa Garraza: Accion de Asalto al Arte No. 10 (1st prize, 2008)

Marina Puche: Emergiendo XVIII (runner-up, 2012)

We wandered through the upstairs rooms, which we have seen before. The art on the walls is generally of the muddy and religious genre, but the rooms themselves are very pretty. And so home for lunch.

We went out late in the afternoon and had a brisk walk, mostly in the sun, down Centelles street to the river and back up along Boriana. We should sleep well.