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Published: January 19th 2008
Spring 2004
Valencia has something of a reputation of being the real deal Spanish experience - a proper big city without the hordes of tourists that have overrun such as Barcelona. The food, the nightlife and the football were also reputed to be up to the mark.
In between the above of course there has to be something else to do during the day - other than sleep off the previous night’s excess, but more of that later. We got a taxi straight to the hotel from the airport, although that was arguably an unnecessary extravagance and set off in search of match tickets for Valencia v Real Sociedad the following day. We stayed at the Novotel halfway between the city centre and the beach area of Malvarrosa - conveniently near the City of Arts & Sciences, but also quite close to the Mestella. The ticket offices were all closed up around the stadium itself, but ever helpful Spanish touts are always on hand to relieve you of your drinking funds. It is a far simpler exercise to continue into town, where the club operates their version of the megastore that sells tickets throughout the day if you can
Valencia 2 v Real Sociedad 2
The Mestella reaches new heightscope without having an adverse reaction to the racks of orange away shirts and the word Toyota.
If Bilbao can become a tourist attraction on the strength of a museum, Valencia has obviously thought we can have a piece of that too! Roll out the City of Arts & Sciences or the give it it’s precise name, the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. It’s not exactly a city, but does comprise of an Opera House, Museum of Arts & Sciences, Oceanarium and an Imax Theatre... I think when we were there it was Museum, Imax Theatre and a lot of scaffolding mind! Everyone has seen Baroque, Rennaisance, Gothic...this is the future…or at least that is how was envisaged by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrva, as a present to his home city. The vision is apparently that of the space age - inspired by animal skeletons!! I think it was a bit too Disney Epcot Centre for our taste, but it’s certainly different and adds something to the trip photos.
The city centre itself is of course back to the usual Cathedral and historical buildings - fine in their own right, but not unique.
The match
itself between Valencia and Real Sociedad was a bit flat, despite an attendance of 45,000. The Champions League Final teams of the past were being reconstructed and Mr Benitez’s mind had probably set sail for the great rotations to come on Merseyside at this point. He was perhaps using the game as a scouting exercise as a certain Xabi Alonso was doing his thing in the opposition midfield and scored the first goal. Valencia eventually stormed back from 2-0 down to equalise in the last minute, but the atmosphere didn’t really reflect the events on the pitch. The Mestella was also something of a disappointment - known as a cauldron of Spanish footie (although avoided by Spain since the failures in the 1982 World Cup), it was more a rusting hulk in comparison to the hitech Premier League.
We moved on to the sample the food and the nightlife. What do you do when in Valencia - home of paella - eat Italian of course. It was a very good Italian mind (allegedly patronised by the Tinkerman himself when he was in town) and we ended up in a restaurant with half the Valencia first team. The nightlife was
centred around an area called Carmen in the city centre - a host of narrow streets populated by lots of those bars behind anonymous doors that come to life sometime after 1 o’clock in the morning.
We spent the next day down by the beach area, where a triathlon was underway. Whilst the beach was an agreeable piece of sand for a big city, I suspect the subsequent Americas Cup has brought some wide ranging changes and glamour to this area of town.
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