Valencia

My five hours in Valencia were over a week ago, but here are some recollections/excerpts from moleskin note-taking :)

Sitting in the botanic garden in Valencia, I cannot understand why my guidebook tried to disuade me from visiting the city. Describing its 'charm' as 'somewhat debated' and the city as 'drab, provincial, and industrial,' Frommers suggested I spend my interim day at the beach instead. True, many of the streets around the train station are populated by chain restaurants and drug stores (and lined--of course--with cheap souvenirs), and the ride in from Madrid shows off the somewhat crumbling and grafitti-splashed factory areas, but just a five minute walk north of the main station and I found myself in the beautiful and impressive Plaza del Ayuntamiento (I haven't figured out how to get pictures on here yet, but I will post proof of the town square´s beauty as soon as I stop being so pathetically technologically challenged).

Sure, Valencia is kinda dirty (from what I saw--I mean I didn't make it to the huge and iper-modern Cuidad de las Artes y las Ciencias south of the city, which is supposedly spotless), but it´s Europe! It is an old and fascinating city, from the little I saw and learned, and even the ickiest little back streets convine you that age always comes before beauty in a city like this. Not that, in the least, Valencia is lacking in beauty (again, pictures pending...but I'm sure there are better ones online already).

After wandering a bit, I headed to the outdoor Mercado to pick up some lunch. I expected, foolishly, a tented marketplace full of little stalls selling fruits and vegetables, and maybe the occasional local delicacy and paella. Instead, I found a GIANT market housed in a train-station-sized and gorgeously built, decorated and domed building, an entire wing of which was dedicated to every kind of sea food you can imagine (and smelling like it, too), enough jamon to feed an army hanging from the ceilings, and the most incredibly delicious looking produce I have ever seen. I spent maybe ten minutes taking pictures of the Valencia oranges, and an hour just wandering around wondering how in the world people who go to Valencia for the day decide what to buy.

After being seduced by the oranges and strawberries, I thought I would be really nice and buy some dried fruit from a fairly neglected stall, supervised by a really sweet looking older man who didn't look like he got a lot of customers. There was a good reason for this, as I discovered almost immediately, as he was the absolute meanest person I have met on the trip so far, and I practically had to beg for my dried peaches. They turned out to be worth it, though...and for any of you who wish to avoid arguments with crotchety old men in Valenican markets in the future, peaches are melocotones and presseguer in Spanish and Catalan (he made sure I learned these words and could say them correctly before he handed the fruit over).

As the day was getting hot, and I would be spending a lot of it sitting on trains, I decided to take my Mercado loot and sit in Valencia's Jardin Botanico, which even my Valencia-hating guide book admitted was worth seeing. The garden is beautiful, and unique: while Madrid's lush botanic garden was intoxicating, full of giant multi-colored irises, looming pine trees, and fragrant vines, Valencia's is relaxing, rejuvenating...a retreat. Actually, as I read on the very informative board at the entrance, it was started in 1567 by la Universitat de Valencia as an orchard exclusively for medicinal plants, and remained so for over 200 years. And while most of the garden has been redesigned along more aesthetic principles, it still bears a studious, pragmatic, and slightly utilitarian look in some places. I sat in the back part of the garden on a bench in the shade, near an old fountain where I observed many visitors washing their hands and feet, and cats lapping up water (the garden is home to a pack of cats who wander around very aware of how adorable they are and how much attention they deserve, and being fed and cared for by the gardeners. One posed very nicely for a photo shoot in the sun, and three or four prowled around me the whole time I sat there eating lunch).

My day in Valencia passed so quickly, and therefore had me slightly worrying about the passage of time on the rest of the trip. In just a few hours I would be installed at the yoga retreat, the 'main attraction' and biggest unknown of the trip, and leaving Valencia I started to get the smallest nagging little doubts about just what the heck I thought I was going to do in the mountainous Catalunyan countryside for a MONTH, when there was so much more of Spain to see and so little time to see it. Passing, on the second stage of my train journey from Valencia to lÀmpolla, the dry red earth, low rolling fields, scrubby olive and orange trees, and increasingly impressive clefted mountain peaks of the Costa Daurada, little waves of nervousness ebbed around me, not at all helped by the fact that Renfe Regional trains do not announce their stops (nor do the train doors open automatically or for very long), and as my arrival time drew near I was constantly craning my neck in all directions trying to figure out where we were.

Views of the ocean helped to calm me down, as did the gorgeous rows of Italian cypress lining hillsides. Completely incongruous little factory towns (complete with big industrial buildings, tons of billboards, even what looked like a nuclear plant) appeared occasionally, looking so out of place, and I would soon be finding out a lot (from my host, Sarah, and her mom, Cherry) about the lives and history of the Catalunyans who live in them.

But those stories, and first impressions of the campo, will have to wait until next time.
Adeu, my friends, que vagi bé.