We Get Visitors/The End

Much has happened. People came to see us. Then they left. The dust settled, and now our time in Valencia is at an end.

On the day I last posted, Monday, 11 February, in the afternoon, Karen and I took a long walk down to the river, across it and up Avenida Aragón, a major boulevarded thoroughfare heading northeast into the suburbs. It goes by the massive stadium where Valencia FC, the local Liga team, plays. The stadium is festooned with giant photo banners that I’m pretty sure weren’t there the first time we came to the city eight years ago and passed by here.

Home of Valencia FC

We turned onto Avenida de Blasco Ibáñez (named for the great Valencian-born novelist of the late 19th, early 20th century). It’s another boulevard with wide parks down the centre. It goes through the Universty of Valencia, which is one of three or four colleges in the city. The parklands are lovely. We were talking about how many boulevards there are in this city, how pretty they are and how inviting to pedestrians. Most have narrower green spaces than this one, but still, Valencia puts to shame most cities – for sure Toronto, which has only one that I can think of, University Avenue.

Blasco Ibáñez ends at the Royal Gardens where we found a sunny spot to sit and read for 40 minutes or so. We were not alone. A young man, a student probably – but if so, better dressed than most – came along soon after we sat down and settled with his book on the next bench along. 

The benches were ranged along a divided highway for bicycles that weaves through the park. The path was also being used by skateboarders while we were there, although skateboarding doesn’t seem to be very popular here, or not in the centre. There is a skateboard park in the Turia Park that we pass sometimes, but we’ve never seen more than a few skaters there at any one time. And you don’t often see them using their skateboards as transportation, skating along the sidewalk or roadway the way they do at home. The sound of skateboard wheels on our street at home is a commonplace.

After our sit in the sun, we walked back to the river, grabbed bikes at a Valenbisi station and rode home.

We went for our another walk and sat in the sun to read on the Tuesday, down to the river. We sat first in the Turia park near the Music Palace. When the sun left the bench we’d chosen, we walked up to the Flower Bridge and sat for awhile in the late sun on a bench half way across. It wasn’t quite as comfortable as pedestrians kept passing. It’s a busy bridge.

I’ve tried to imagine what this fellow was doing there with a giant teddy bear. Waiting for a romantic rendezvous with his girl friend, perhaps? Or maybe a man separated from his wife and filling time until the appointed hour for visiting his son or daughter?

We walked back up Marqués de Túria and home.

Archbishop's Square

The next day, we walked into the centre and ended up at the Archbishop’s Square again, where we sat in the sun and had a drink. (I think a pattern is emerging here: sit, sun, drink, read. After our drink, Karen went home on her own while I went off for a wander to take photos. My last real opportunity before the visitors started arriving.

Borgia Palace (now law courts)

It’s hard to get lost in this city, which is what I was trying to do. I kept coming back to places I knew. I did still see some little streets and alleys I hadn’t seen before, or at least not this year, and found some interesting street art too. Herewith a sampling of pictures taken.

I finished off the afternoon near La Lonja de Seda, the old silk exchange and grabbed some more close-ups of the exterior decorations.

On Thursday, the 14th – International Caitlin Day – Caitlin, Louis and Bobby, arrived. I took the tube out to the airport and met them. We cabbed back to the flat.. They were tired, and Bob was under the weather – some kind of stomach bug – so we didn’t do much. Other than baby worship. What a gorgeous, happy little boy he is!

The beautiful birthday girl - and cactus boy

Bob was still feeling lousy the next day, though some better. We whiled away the morning at the flat, playing with baby, feeding baby, changing baby, putting baby down for a nap. Baby, baby, baby. Meal times are particularly entertaining.

Then we took Bob and the rest of us out into the sun and had lunch at A La Fresca, the little restaurant a few blocks away where Karen and I had our first lunch out this year. The waitress, a young woman who has served us a couple of times before and appears to be in her mid-20s, made a great fuss of Louis. He is a terrible flirt so he lapped it up. She spoke to him in Spanish, but it made no difference, he grinned madly. She told us she had four kids at home, so she must be older than she looks.

We walked into the centre and did a short loop ending up on Avenida Colón, which we took back to Ruzafa and home. Bob was a trouper.

By the next morning, the Saturday, after a long sleep, Bob seemed almost completely recovered, certainly well enough to entertain his boy. 

We set out late in the morning and walked over to Ruzafa Market to show them what a Spanish mercado looks like. I think they were duly impressed. The place was hopping, as it usually is on a Saturday. We were lucky enough afterwards to find a table in the sun at a little cafe in front of the church. It gave us a ringside view of the neighbourhood comings and goings. Caitlin and Bob had bought some little tarts from a Portuguese bakery in the market, which we ate there.

After this brief pause, we walked on, into the centre, to show them the Central market. While Karen took them on, I went down to the Orange Store on Colón to find out why my phone was showing that it had no SIM card.

The people I talked to – a nice young woman who spoke some English and was very anxious to please, and another young woman who seemed merely irritated with me and spoke no English – couldn’t immediately figure out what the problem was. The first thing they did was take out the SIM to make sure it was physically okay. When they put it back in and restarted the phone, it wanted a PIN. I thought I had changed the PIN to my usual, but it wouldn’t accept it. That created all kinds of confusion.

I had also told them I didn’t have the card with the SIM’s information on it. The nice one said that was not a problem, they’d look me up in their system. Except they couldn’t find me in their system, not under name, not with the SIM’s phone number, not with my passport number which they had taken when I bought the SIM. Much consternation. Finally, I remembered, oh, yes, I did have the card the SIM came on after all, fished it out of my wallet and passed it over. The young woman punched in the default PIN, which is on that card, and the phone opened, and showed that it had connected to the Orange network. Solved!

Except why on earth, for at least the two days previous, did it tell me it didn’t have a SIM of any kind installed? We may never know.

I met up with the others in front of the Central market and we walked on to our next destination: Restaurate Abadía Espi in the Archbishop’s Square. This is the place Karen and I had stopped for drinks a couple of times. We’d decided it would be ideal for Caitlin’s delayed birthday dinner. My darling is 34! Ridiculous. The place was busy but we found a table in the sun. 

The birthday girl...

...and her mum

The food was good and the portions generous. Caitlin and Bob seemed to enjoy it, and certainly enjoyed sitting in the sun quaffing beer and cava. Bob and I had steaks that the English menu said were veal steaks but which appeared to be...not so young. Still good, though. Can’t remember what the others had. Caitlin I think had oxtail stew, an odd choice. Service generally good. The maître’d now recognizes me.

Louis was in a fine flirty mood. He enjoyed the little fountain in the square. He’s absolutely ga-ga about his bath, so we figure he thinks fountains are just big baths.

It’s an affluent neighbourhood and at one of the tables behind us, a very indulgent grandfather was entertaining his perhaps eight-year-old grandson. The little guy had an electric car – which must have been very expensive to buy – that he was driving around the tables. It could go maybe 5 kph. It was quite loud and the kid nearly ran into people or tables a couple of times. Nobody seemed to mind. It’s fairly typical of Spanish tolerance for and low expectations of children’s behaviour.

Late sun in Ruzafa

We wandered back through the Plaza de Virgen, where Louis enjoyed the Neptune fountain. And then wended our way home in the late sun. Everybody went to bed fairly early again. Louis and Caitlin have been sleeping badly, so Caitlin runs out of steam early.

Sunday was meant to be a fairly sunny day – not that warm: 15C or 16C – but at least some sun. We figured it might be the last chance for a nice day to go to the beach and we could have lunch there. So off we went, leaving the flat a little after one. We walked over to the Xativa tube stop and took the metro and then a tram to a stop near the beach – the same stop, Reale Marina, where Karen and I have caught the tram to get back from the beach after our bike trips there.

The beach, it being a reasonably sunny and mild Sunday, was crazy busy. By the time we started down the promenade, it was two or a little after. We walked from near the Hotel Neptuno down to the first of the restaurants by the water, Restaurante Casa Zaragoza. It had a table in the sun on the terrace so we sat down. But Bob went in to use the loo and came back out saying he didn’t think we should stay, that the place looked unsanitary. I knew what he meant. Karen and I have stopped here for drinks and I’ve gone in to use the bathroom. It seems fine when you’re out on the terrace, but inside, it’s a bit of a pig sty. So we pulled up stakes and walked on.

By the time we had settled on another restaurant, Restaurante La Herradura, near the end of the Malvarosa promenade, it was almost three. And by the time the waitress finally came to take our order, it was after three. I had offered to meet Shelly Rowe when her train came in from Seville at Estación de Norte at 4:05. She has a torn rotater cuff muscle from tennis and would have had difficulty dragging her suitcase the three or four blocks to the apartment she and Shelley Boyes had rented, so I said I’d go and help her. As we started to order, I realized I’d run out of time and would have to leave immediately to make our rendezvous. I grabbed a bike and rode to the Maritime Serraria tube stop, caught a train to Bailen and walked over to Estación de Norte. I arrived with a little over ten minutes to spare, only to discover that Shelly’s train was running 25 minutes late. Aye caramba! I whiled away the time, trying for long-planned shot of train station and bull ring.

Shelly arrived, with a cold as well as a sore shoulder. It seems to be a pattern: she comes to Spain to visit Shelley and us, and gets sick. The last time, in 2012, she was bedridden with a bad cold in Barcelona with Shelley for a week, then trained up to Valencia to see us as the cold was waning and got some kind of stomach bug that kept her close to the apartment.

It was a five-minute walk to their flat. The landlady was waiting to let us in. The place seemed quite decent to me, compact but comfortable and on the top floor, so presumably quieter than ours. The kitchen was a bit basic, but it did have both microwave and toaster, neither of which ours has. We walked back to our flat, about 15 or 20 minutes away, and a half hour later, Karen, Caitlin, Bob and Louis turned up. The meal at Heradura, they told me, was one of the best they’d had here. Rats!

We ate a late-ish dinner in: roast pork loins from Mercadona, veggies, salad, pasta. Shelly stayed until past 10. Caitlin, of course, went to bed with Louis well before that. She has been having terrible sleep with him lately. He wakes every half hour or 45 minutes, waking Caitlin, and needs to be soothed. So they go to bed early. Shelly walked home by herself. The streets around here are perfectly safe, even at night.

The next day, the Monday, Bob wanted to check out the Camper store on Avenida Colón to see if he could find a replacement for the Camper sneakers he bought in Glasgow a few years ago. We arranged to meet Shelly there and then go for lunch and a ramble. Bob ended up buying a pair of bright blue sneakers. Very eye-catching. Karen and I were both tempted – though not by the blue sneakers. Shelly too. But Bob’s was the only purchase.

We wandered over to Plaza de Rodrigo Botet, a couple of blocks from City Hall. I think it’s one of the prettiest squares in the city. We were hoping one of our favourite restaurants there from past trips, Taberna Las Meninas, would be open, but no such luck. We settled instead for a little Italian restaurant, Cepetto, with an available table in the sun. Everybody but me had tortellini al pana, a dish Karen remembers with great fondness from our early trips to Italy. She doesn’t allow herself much pasta these days, so this was a special treat. I had a pizza for my main. I think we all had the same green salad for starters. Everything was good. Shelly generously paid for all. Thank you again, Shelly.

Shelley Boyes was coming in by train from Barcelona late in the afternoon, so after lunch, Shelly Rowe went off to wait for her at their flat. We went home. Caitlin was exhausted and badly needed a nap, so Karen and Bob and I took Master Louis for a long walk down to the City of Arts and Sciences. I think Bob was impressed, as we certainly always are. It is, as I’ve said before an architectural Fantasyland. 

Of course I took more pictures. I noticed that a slight change of angle made the opera house look like a helmeted warrior or a big fish head. Weird. The Hemisferic was open for the first time we've been here and we wandered into it. Still not sure what it's for but it's very cool inside.

City of Arts & Sciences: inside Hemisferic looking out

City of Arts & Sciences: inside Hemisferic looking out

Queen Sofia Arts Centre: fish head

Queen Sofia Arts Centre: helmeted warrior

We were gone for over an hour and a half, but when we got back, Caitlin told us she had only managed about 45 minutes of sleep.

The Shell(e)ys came for a dinner of Mercadona roasted chickens, veg and rice. A convivial evening, the wine flowed. Can’t remember what we talked about. The ladies weaved home that night.

The next day, the last of Caitlin’s and Bob’s vacation, started with Caitlin exhausted again after a terrible night with Louis. He has a cold, plus, they suspect, chronic tummy issues. The weird thing is that although he’s an awful sleeper and often seems distressed in the night, he is always full of beans and cheerful during the day. We can’t figure it out.

Bob took Louis out a little after 9 so Caitlin could go back to bed. He texted me 45 minutes later to see if she was up yet. She wasn’t, so I went and met him at the little vinyl record store I’d pointed out to him a few blocks away. When I got there and went to extract Louis from his stroller, I realized he was...poopy. That was the end of record shopping.

We went a few doors down to a church, Parroquia San Francisco de Borja – named after one of the Borgia popes – that was open for the first time I’d ever noticed. It was kind of pretty, with large frescoes painted in the 1970s, and now undergoing restoration. We had a quick look inside, then changed Louis’ diaper in the church porch. I was impressed with daddy’s pragamatism and dexterity. I think I would have just taken him back to the flat and handed him to his mother. 

Parroquia San Francisco de Borja, Ruzafa

After the boy was cleaned up, we went across the street and sat in the sun at a bar for a coffee and coke. Louis flirted shamelessly with an older woman who chucked his chin as she was leaving and said he was “muy sympatico” (very nice) and a “cariño” (sweetie pie). When we went home, Caitlin was still in bed. By the time she got up later, she had managed almost two hours of uninterrupted sleep. Hooray!

Shelley was insistent we let her treat us to a paella lunch, something she always looks forward to when coming to Valencia. Bob had had a recommendation of a place from Johnny’s (aka the Marquis of Bute’s) personal assistant, so we headed there. La Pepica it’s called, a very long established business. It was down at the beach, in the same block as the Hotel Neptuno. It had apparently started many years before as a shack on the beach. We took the train and tram again and met the Shell(e)ys there a little after two.

The restaurant is cavernous, and even on a Tuesday got busy very quickly. The food wasn’t anything very special, I didn’t think, and the service was harried and slow. Bob and I shared a paella Valenciana. It was by no means the best I’ve had in Valencia. But it was a very convivial lunch. The wine flowed again. Louis was entertaining. Shelly Rowe suggested we give him a chicken bone to gnaw on. I think we were all a little dubious about this but he loved it. He’s going to be a carnivore after all. He tried quite a few new foods at this lunch. Thank you dear Shelley.

Louis getting in touch with his inner cave man

After lunch, we walked out to the end of the sea wall and back through the marina. We caught the tram home from the Grau station.

And that was pretty much it for Caitlin’s and Bob’s little holiday. They were leaving first thing next morning – 11 a.m. flight so would have to get out of the flat by nine. They mostly packed that afternoon. Shelley Boyes came over in the evening briefly for wine and snacks and to say goodbye, while Shelly R snoozed on the sofa back at their flat. Then everybody went to bed.

We looked into pre-ordering a taxi to take Caitlin and Bob to the airport, but in the end figured we could just flag one on Calle de Centelles around the corner. Bad decision. Getting them out the door the next morning was a little tense. Then there were no cabs. We stood at the side of the road, right on a taxi/bus lane for over 10 minutes. Lots of cabs went by but all occupied. Finally, Caitlin used her mobile to call an Uber. Within a few minutes of doing that, we naturally saw a couple of taxis go by without passengers. It took another several minutes for the car to arrive. It was a big, fairly luxurious-looking car with leather seats. The young driver was dressed in a natty suit. And off they went. They made their flight.

Karen by this time was down with a nasty cold. Louis’ or Shelly’s? Who knows? I had it as well, but not quite as bad.

The Shell(e)ys went walkabout around the city centre and out for lunch that day. We didn’t want to go for lunch because we had stuff at the flat to eat up before leaving. So we arranged to meet them at their flat for wine and tapas at 5:30 or so. Karen and I walked down to the Turia park about 2:30 and sat in the sun, reading, by the pool under Puente de Mar, then walked up to their place.

We were both exhausted by the time we got there. The colds were taking it out of us. We drank water while the ladies drank wine. Tapas never materialized, can’t remember why. Then we headed over to our place for a meal of little salomillo steaks and veggie stir fry. Another convivial, wine-y evening, though not as late, in deference to Karen’s worsening cold, now accompanied by conjunctivitis.

Shelley was leaving early the next morning, Thursday, for Barcelona. Shelly Rowe would join her there for the last week and a bit of her trip but, it was decided, would stay with us for one night to let Shelley get settled in her Barca lodging. She came over in the late morning and we had lunch at the flat. Shelly was still suffering from the cold, in fact suffering more than when she had first arrived, she said. So nobody was feeling very energetic.

Pigeon roosting on top of lamp post in front of our flat

We did go out in the afternoon and walk over to Central Park, then back in to Ruzafa to sit on a patio over wine and beer. Shelly and I ordered the same white wine, which turned out to be awful. We suffered with it for awhile, then Shelly took the two glasses, marched into to the bar, told them we didn’t like it and got a different – alas, only slightly better – wine for herself and a beer for me. They didn’t charge us for the first wine.

Shelly at A la Fresca

Another thrown-together dinner back at the flat and early to bed. We introduced Shelly to the modest pleasures of Mercadona pre-prep tortillas.

Shelly R booked a train to Barcelona for a little after 1 pm from Estación de Norte. We all packed in the morning. Karen and I were leaving the following morning, very early. I organized a cab for us, for 5 a.m. – yikes! – using an online taxi booking service. And also registered, finally, for Uber – as a back-up. We left to walk Shelly over to the train station a little after noon, and left her there with 30 minutes to wait for her train. (It turned out to be even longer, she reported, as the train was late getting in from wherever it came from.) Karen and I walked home to continue packing.

It was a gorgeous day – sunny with a high forecast to be 21C. By the time we came out again an hour and a half later it was truly hot, certainly higher than 21C in the sun. We’d decided to have one last lunch out so walked over to Plaza de Rodrigo Botet in hopes that our old favourite, Las Meninas, would be open.

It was open, but we had been forgetting that it had changed ownership at some point between our first and second visits to Valencia and was no longer the same place. When we first went there it was a family-run restaurant with a lunchtime menu del dia featuring simple food and good value. Now it’s more of a tourist place, specializing in tapas, and much more expensive. But it does have an a la carte menu. We usually insist on a menu del dia but didn’t have the energy to walk on in search of a place we liked. The waiter was a little oily, but the food was good, we enjoyed it, and certainly enjoyed sitting in the sun.

The place filled with tourists, mostly English. The Italian restaurant where we’d eaten with Shelly and the kids earlier in the week was doing a good business too. The third restaurant in the square, which appears to be Dutch – the only sign on it says Nederland 1814 – was almost deserted.

We should have gone off walking for a last look at the city, but neither of us had the energy. We went home to finish our packing and prep for the next day of travel. We were in bed by 9 p.m. My cold decided this would be a good time to kick into high gear, so it wasn’t a good night. Up the next morning at 4 a.m. Ouch! I didn’t entirely trust that the taxi would come, but it did. The drive was less than 15 minutes, the streets mostly deserted. 19€ with tip.

The flight to Edinburgh was typical Ryanair, but we had the bulkhead seats at the front again, which I like a lot, despite having no seat in front to put your bag under. The flight was full of Glasgow Celtics soccer fans who had come over for an inter-league game with Valencia FC – their team lost – and at least one Spanish highschool trip. The kids were excited but reasonably well behaved. Most of the soccer fans were hung over and morose, though some still drunk and rowdy. And then there was us.

We had booked the same Hampton by Hilton hotel right at the airport in Edinburgh. We were afraid they wouldn’t let us check in until 3 p.m. – we were arriving before 10 a.m. – but they gave us a room right away. We had the breakfast buffet, napped, then walked over to the terminal to buy supplies. We had thought of going into the city but, again, neither of us has the energy.

And that’s the story of our 2019 trip to Valencia. Today, Sunday, we have to kill most of the day – we’re hoping they’ll let us have late check-out – until Bob and Caitlin fly in from Essex, where they’ve been visiting Bob’s big boys. We’ll drive back to Bute together.