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Published: February 21st 2024
The week before our planned 4 weeks of travel around Spain with a two-week extension to fit in Vienna and Budapest, lots of work was done on the boat. On Monday afternoon we were able to pick up the stainless-steel support that we took to the local boatyard to have welded. The welding job was an excellent one – they definitely have quite the craftsperson at Ascar Boatyard. Now the work had to be done to put all the 7 wires that were pulled out of it last week, back in! Trying to squeeze the wires in, especially with some of them having quite a large diameter and even larger fittings on the end, was a job but with the help of our “snake” and a little dish-soap to make the wire slippery, that part of the job was done. The next step involved Bob doing quite a bit of soldering to get the instrument panel and the support for the chart-plotter back in place. Next was pushing some of the wire back through to the electrical panel down at the navigation station. By Thursday night that was done, just in time as we leave the next day for 6 weeks.
When we get back after our travels, Bob can complete the connections at the nav station and cross our fingers that all the instruments work again!
Now we need to forget all about the work that needs to get done before we head back to the US the end of March and enjoy our explorations here. On Friday, February 2
nd we took a pleasant train ride from Cartagena to Valencia. It took 5 hours which was longer than driving as it made a few stops on the way, but it is definitely a relaxing way to go and with our senior discount tickets it was only 24 euros (about $26) apiece. We had a perfectly clear and sunny day for the start of our trip and we are keeping our fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate, but we did pack a few things for cooler weather.
When we got off at the train station, the first thing that caught our eye was the train station itself. It is in beautiful condition with amazing stain glass windows, lovely woodwork and tile murals on the walls. It definitely makes for a wonderful first impression. We could either catch a
bus to our apartment or walk. We decided after sitting for the 5 hours it was good to walk the 15 minutes as it also gave a chance to check out what is close by. We rented an apartment with full kitchen facilities so need to check out grocery stores but also restaurants in the neighborhood as we will be here for 6 days.
After checking in, we took a lovely walk around the area to get our bearings, pick up a few basic things at the store for breakfast and then wandered until we found a place to eat. After our meal we continued to walk just checking out the buildings and getting our orientation. Definitely looks like a great place to explore.
Our first full day in Valencia – we were greeted with another beautiful sunny day with no wind. After having breakfast at the apartment, we headed to the Central Market. What a feast for the stomach as well as the eyes! The building itself is a wonder to see with its tile work and intricate ironwork, both inside and out. Once you step inside, you are almost overwhelmed by the offerings from the numerous
vendors. It has everything from fish, meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts, spices, wine, beer and even a couple of bars/cafes where you can eat. It seems that if it is edible, you’d be able to find it here! We wandered up and down the numerous aisles and were very impressed with the very neat displays with prices clearly indicated and wide aisleways. We have been many markets over the years we have traveled, but we now can say that this is the best we have ever seen.
Close to the market is the Iglesia De Los Santos Juanes (Church of St. Johns) which we had purchased tickets for so decided to visit today. Fortunately, when we first arrived, there were only one or two other people there so had a chance to see it without the crowds. A little later a large group came in, but they were there for a christening that was being held in a chapel in the back so we had the luxury the whole time of only a few tourists. The audio guide was excellent, not only with a very clear voice, but we enjoyed the history told with a few entertaining comments to keep
it interesting. This parish is one of the oldest and largest in Valencia, with much of it currently being restored. There was quite a bit of scaffolding in various parts of the church hiding some that we were being told about on the audio-guide, but even with this, there was enough visible to get an appreciation for the transformations that have taken place over the years. This Church has been damaged by numerous fires over its eight centuries of history. The first fire was in 1311 which resulted in the original smaller parish being completely destroyed. A larger church was built in its place. 50 years later it took 6 years to build a new Church in the Gothic style with ribbed vaults. After a second fire in 1592 the wall closest to the Market was affected and over the next century a variety of add-ons of ornamentation and frescos occurred. Since 1693 the Church was remodeled with a barrel vault which then covered the Gothic vaulting. With this new vault, it provided a place for new sculptures and pictorial work. This resulted in the very ornate Baroque interior with the assistance of Italian artists. The Baroque details were incorporated
The Bullring Is Located Next to the Train Station
Valencia is one of few cities with traditional bullfightinginside as well as on the exterior. A fire again broke out in 1936 and restoration work was done, but unfortunately not with well-trained artisans as they actually caused more damage to the artwork. Fortunately, there had been a black and white photo taken prior to this fire and with the advanced technology of today, they were able to digitally enhance the photograph so that artisans can once again replicate the artwork that had been damaged. In fact, if there were parts of the photo they could not enhance, they did not “fill in that area with guesses” as they did not want to do anything to take away from the original artist work.
After the market and visit to the church, it was time for lunch so were able to find a place where we could sit outside. How wonderful to be able to do that in February! Hard to believe, but that is only the first part of the day, as we had a walking tour lined up for 4PM to learn more about this amazing city. So glad we have more days to explore.
Our guide, John, was excellent! It was especially nice that it
was only a group of 5 so it was easy to hear him and to get around the city. We were very impressed with his explanations of the history of Valencia, but how it fit into the big picture of what was happening elsewhere and how it made an impact on what happened here. It was supposed to be a 2-hour walking tour, but it wound up being a little over 2 ½ hours as we were all interested and he was willing to finish the tour as we did get a bit of a “hiccup”. There was one place where we were suppose to walk through when all of a sudden when we came to it we found the streets were closed and packed with people, cars stuck in traffic and no place to move. John asked what was happening and found out it was the celebration of the Chinese New Year! Fortunately, he knows the city well so we were able to make a detour to get us to the other points of interests on the tour. It was a wonderful way to orient us to Valencia while also learning the history. John also was good at providing
us numerous tips for the rest of our time here.
We had a wonderful day and fortunately in the evening we found a great restaurant where we ended the day with an amazing meal. It definitely wasn’t on the inexpensive side, but well worth it and it topped off our day. A great first full day in Valencia! Looking forward to the rest of our time here.
February 4 – Sunday – On our agenda today was a visit to the Ceramics Museum. Here you get to enjoy the museum, but also the home, the Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas, one of the best examples of Baroque architecture here. The palace itself was originally built in the Gothic style, but then was changed to Baroque in the mid-18
th C. Before entering you are almost overwhelmed by the carvings on the exterior, all made of alabaster. After taking that in, we went inside and found that the museum was actually free on some Sunday’s and this was one of them.
On the ground floor they have a few carriages on display in the area that had originally been the carriage house and stables for the palace. The
Night Lighting Of the Fountain & Buildings
which we later learned while walking around the 1st day first floor then takes you through the private rooms of the Marquis showing you among others the ballroom, bedroom, and sitting room. Many of the rooms had original furniture from the time of the Marquis, but also a collection of paintings and tapestries on the walls. The next floor up contained the actual museum with its numerous examples of ceramics from antique Greek and Roman times up to modern times. It was very well laid out as it clearly made distinctions marking the centuries.
After leaving the museum I remembered reading that on Sunday’s there is a place where street dances are performed so headed over to that location quickly as we noticed numerous dancers (in their elaborate costumes) walking away from the plaza. We were afraid it was over, but found out that they had numerous dance groups performing so we were able to listen and watch a few of the groups. We are always amazed at the similarities in some of the traditional dance groups we have seen in various countries. We of course aren’t positive about the actual dance steps themselves, but just in general appearance from the laymen’s eye, some of the costumes and general
dance formations seem similar. The costumes themselves are elaborate, both of the men and women and they were very generous in showing them off whenever people asked about them.
As it was such a beautiful day, we decided to stop at the store and pick up a few things to make a picnic lunch and head out to the park created by the diversion of the Turia River. It is one of the largest parks in Spain as it runs for 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) filled with foot paths, soccer fields, fountains, and lovely plantings. The Turia River still exist, it was just diverted as it had been flooding the city numerous times. After the flood in 1957, it was decided to change its course and as a result, the riverbed was then converted to this lovely green space. Even though it was a beautiful day with plenty of people making use of it, we found a nice park bench to sit and enjoy our picnic lunch – a nice change from walking through the city streets.
The City of Arts and Sciences is located within this same riverbed, but quite a distance from where we were so
we hopped on to a bus (1.50 each) and spent the rest of the afternoon walking through this area which was quite a drastic change from the historic area we had been spending our time in. We are told that this is one of the largest scientific and cultural complexes in the world. There are 6 main elements of this complex – the Hemisferic (IMAX cinema & planetarium), the Umbracle (urban garden), the Science Museum (with interactive displays), the Oceanografic (aquarium), the Palace of the Arts (opera house) and the Agora (multipurpose space for concerts and various activities). The first building was inaugurated in 1998 and the last one was opened in 2005. It is interesting to read about the history of the initial ideas behind this City and then the descriptions of the buildings themselves. They range from the eye shaped hemispheric representing the eye of knowledge, the water lily shaped aquarium, and the science museum housed in the one shaped like a shark’s skeleton. As it was somewhat late in the day we didn’t go into the museum or the aquarium. We were able to walk through the building where the science museum is located and were pleasantly
surprised to see that they actually had a few interactive displays that people could learn from and enjoy without even paying for admission – a nice way to introduce people to it even if they couldn’t make it into the museum itself.
February 5 – Monday - Most of the museums and other places of interest are closed on Monday’s so we took the time in the morning to do a wash as our apartment has a washing machine. It is rare to find clothes drier but they do provide a clothes rack so knew we’d need time for it to dry. It was early in our trip to do a wash, but the machines are quite small and we had the time, so why not? After our “housekeeping” and breakfast we took a wander around Valencia. We didn’t have too much definite planned for the day but as Bob really loves Chinese for lunch and I knew there was a Chinatown here (there are about 20,000 Chinese living here) we aimed in that direction. On our way we saw that near the Central Market there was another market going on outside – lots of clothes at very reasonable
Mercat de Colon Historically Was a Market
with the outside designs telling what was sold inside prices – nothing that we needed OR had room in our suitcase for- so continued on our travels. I had read that besides paella, Valencia had two other foods that are unique to this location. One is a non-alcoholic cold drink called horchata (oxyata) and the other a pastry called fartons. As we hadn’t tried either yet, today was the day to do so. The horchata is made of ground tiger nuts, water and sugar with some adding cinnamon. Our guide the other day told us that it is similar in taste to chai and we found he was right on this fact too! We both enjoyed it as well as the farton which is a light pastry sprinkled with confectionery sugar. We only got one of those to try and thought it went well with the horchata. It was another beautiful day so were able to enjoy sitting outside the café - still have to remind ourselves that it is February. As it was now getting close to 2pm, it was time to get to Chinatown for some lunch. Just like in other Chinatown’s we have been in, there were plenty of places to buy ingredients for your Chinese
dishes and of course restaurants.
Where to wander next? I sort of wanted to go back to the Mercat de Colon as we saw it while on our tour and figured it was a place to aim for where we could stop for coffee if we wished. On our walk there, we found a small coffee shop so stopped there instead before heading to the Mercat. The building was designed in the early 20
th C. and it is one of the best examples of art nouveau here in Valencia. The ceramic details on the ends of the building told people what was offered inside as it was original a market that sold everything from fish, meat, and vegetables but has now been transformed into a place where you can go to relax with a drink or have a meal. This place is now open 6 days a week from 7:30am until 2:00 am so you can never say there isn’t a place to go in the wee hours.
We made it an early day out as we were back in the apartment by 5:30PM to check on laundry and just crash as we had picked up some things
at the grocery store yesterday for dinner so will eat in tonight.
Tuesday, 2/6 – Today after a leisurely morning in the apartment, we went to see the St. Nicholas Church. The other day we bought a ticket that allowed entry to this church, the Silk Museum and the Iglesia De Los Santos Juanes (Church of St. James) so this was the second one we had a ticket for. I had heard it was worth visiting as the ceiling has been compared to the Sistine Chapel. It was first erected as a parish church in 1242, but remodeled in the Gothic style between 1419-1455. The interior was recoated with Baroque decorations and frescos painted of the life of St. Nicholas and St. Peter Martyr between 1690-1693. The reason this is the case is that it is a Church officially dedicated to both saints, but is most commonly referred to the Church of St. Nicholas. As soon as we entered, we could understand why this is compared to the Sistine Chapel as every inch of the majestic ceiling and walls were covered with painted scenes. We learned from the audio-guide that in architecture a lunette is the hollow space of
a vault or dome formed by the intersection of the next one. These intersections in this church created six lunettes on each side of the nave. This area was used by the artists to show a main scene of a particular saint, with each lunette dedicated to a different saint. Within each of these there was a common depiction of an angel on each side. One thing we learned here is that there are different types of angels and the ones that are within each lunette are carrying candles and are not of the type that we many times view as an angel. This is the first time we were informed of the fact that there are different types of angels – who knew? Some of you reading this, may have, but it was definitely new to us.
Just a short distance away we returned to the Turia Fountain that we had visited the other day on our walking tour. We had been told that the fountain is dedicated to the Turia River. The river is represented by a male as the word “river” is masculine in Spanish, while the 8 female statutes represent the 8 canals that flow
Major Renovations Going On in St James
some restored, still lots more work to be done from the river. After enjoying a cup of café while sitting outside just enjoying the plaza, we entered the Basilica that bordered one side. It was built in 1667 in an oval shape with a domed roof and lantern. The exterior is made from white stone and brick tiles while the interior floor was made from numerous types of marble. Two churches in one day for us and then we wandered around the city for the rest of the late afternoon. One thing is for certain – Valencia is a very easy city to get around and everywhere we have wandered has felt safe.
Wed – Feb 7 – Our last full day in Valencia meant taking in 3 sites of interest – the Valencia Town Hall, the Silk Museum, and the Silk Exchange. The Town Hall is open to the public for free during the week and we were fortunate to get there when we did as there appeared that an official meeting was going to take place so we were able to see some of the guards as well as officers in their official garb. We did see that one of the guards was a woman and
we did try to find out if there were many in the guard, but we couldn’t speak enough Spanish and she didn’t understand our English. It would be interesting to find out how many females fill these positions. The public is allowed to wander through a few of the halls as well as go out onto the balcony which is located over the main entrance. It gave us a lovely view of the plaza from this height. The building was constructed between 1905-1929, but the balcony was added quite recently in 1967. There is a Historic Museum housed here which we also wandered through which showed some of the older maps of Valencia when it was a walled city as well as wall hangings of the various Spanish monarchs. We were glad we were leaving when we did however as there were numerous school groups touring. We have been noticing the last couple of days that there is a much larger population of school age kids here in Valencia so there must be a school holiday somewhere!
The Silk Museum was part of the three-site ticket which we had purchased when we first arrived here. We knew it was
on our list of places to see so today was the day. It is housed in the former headquarters of the Silkmakers Guild which dates back to the 15
th C. Here you come to learn about the making of silk material and its importance to the economy, but also to view this historic building. There are 2 main rooms; one that was the main room where the important heads of the institution would meet which has a beautiful ceiling fresco as well as a ceramic tile floor. The second was a chapel that has a very interesting green and white tiled floor. The museum itself holds numerous samples of silk material from over the centuries as well as provides information on the making of silk from the raising of the silkworms to the collecting of the cocoons, and sorting which ones to use for the spinning of the silk thread. It also covered information about the natural materials used to dye the threads, the paper patterns used for the designs and some examples of the clothing made from silk. It went further into the explanation that velvet is also made from silk. The difference is that it is woven into
2 thicknesses at the same time and then they are cut apart to create the pile of the material that we know as velvet. The exhibit went on to talk about other items that were also made such as sashes, ropes and belts. They had some looms on exhibit – typically they have someone working on them, but unfortunately there wasn’t anyone today.
The last tourist attraction we went to today was the Silk Exchange. What a bargain that was as it is typically only 2 euros, but if over 65 years of age it is only 1 euro! We did “splurge” and paid for the audio-guide which we were very pleased with as it included details about the interior but also the exterior. This is the first time we have had an audio-guide that you are allowed to go out of the facility to go to numerous spots to learn about the exterior and then allows you back in to finish the tour inside. It was built between 1482-1533. It was originally used for trading silk, therefore the name, but in fact it was used for much more than that. Silk weaving was Valencia’s biggest industry from the
14
th – 18
th C. Over the centuries very little work has been done therefore the Gothic characteristics of this civic building you see today makes it one of the best preserved here in Valencia.
One of the most impressive rooms is a large hall which has 3 main aisles as they are separated by 16-meter-tall columns. They were put up by cranes and have what appears as a “twist” in them which then meets up with the vaults in the ceiling giving what some say a look of palm trees. As the audio-guide told us, the architect was ahead of his time with the details that he planned and that even with the amount of time since being constructed there is not a crack in one of them no matter how much you look for it! High up on the sides in this room is a Latin inscription which is translated into “try, and see how good is trade when one’s speech contains no lie, when a promise is made to another and kept, when money is lent without usuary. Merchants who live in this way will have abundant riches and at the end will enjoy eternal life”. The
idea was to have a grandiose hall for the trading to be done in as it illustrated the power and wealth of the city in the 15th & 16
th C.
The first municipal banking institution was created in 1407 and was installed in this building to be dedicated to commercial transactions. As stated earlier, it is called the Silk Exchange due to its beginnings, but in fact it covered various commodities such as oil, grains and cereals. As with most places during this time, a chapel was also part of the complex which was a simple rectangular room with a beautiful stain glass window. The other impressive room is called the Golden Room due to the ceiling installed here. This is the room that had been changed as the ceiling was originally from another historic building, the old town hall, that had been torn down.
The building is decorated with a wide variety of characters around its doorways and windows which were to remind the merchant of the need for dignity, honesty and fairness. At the time, it was thought that all were tempted by evil, therefore it was important to portray some of this near the base
of the doors and window and then as you go up toward the arch at the top, they needed to display virtues to strive for. We sort of wonder if the messages were clear at the time as even with the audio-guide explaining it, some of it appeared to be more than a little confusing!
We have thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Valencia but know that tomorrow we are to catch a train to our next week of adventure in Barcelona. If the rest of our travels are anything like the start, we know the 6 weeks will fly by!
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
L'hemisferic Is
With your specialty of split image photos this one is a cracker...brilliant!!! I have posted it in "Architectural details" thread in the Photography Forum. Check it out.