Oranges and Architecture - Valencia

Bridge in Valencia over what used to be the river.

Valencia Old Town

Cathedral Square Valencia

Valencia Cathedral between Sunday masses

Spectacular Market in Valencia

Silk Exchange, Valencia

Valencia Oranges in Silk Exchange courtyard

Oranges on facade of Valencia railway station

Dr. Fleming memorial, Valencia

Telecommunications Building, Valencia

Sunday - 4 May 2014 - Valencia, Spain

València is the third largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona and is a bit older than little Cartegena. I had been to this lovely city in April, 2004 when I visited the imposing cathedral and went to the old market to photograph, now wait for this, Valencia oranges. (Ha, ha, "Valencia oranges", I thought, kind of like "New York steak" or "Lima beans"). I remembered little else from my visit 10 years ago as Barbara and I set out as soon as the ship was cleared by the local authorities. One of these days I'll find out who these people are. 

We learned from the gratuitous guide on the ship's shuttle bus during the half hour ride from the port to the old town that Valencia was known for the flooding of the Turia River which runs through town. Nice for a 2,158 year old city to have something it's known for, I suppose. But the city government decided in the 1950s (finally) to do something about it. They diverted the Turia (to Madrid I believe she said through her sing-song accent) and made the 20-odd miles of the old river bed into winding and quite lovely parkland. They also kept the "puentes", she said, whatever that means. My, my, the Valencia accent is strange. I think she meant "bridges."

The old city, a UNESCO site, is really pretty lovely. There's narrow alleyways, wide plazas, and more churches than you can shake an incense burner at. We visited a bunch of churches including the cathedral, and since it was Sunday we heard a couple of quite inspiring sermons. I didn't understand a word of them, but I was inspired nevertheless. The last church had essentially empty pews but in front were a number of robed guys droning what sounded like a Gregorian chant. We listened for a while, but finding that the words seemed to consist mostly of "dominu" and it didn't have a good enough beat to dance to, we left and headed for the market.

The architecture of the market was niftier than I had remembered, but we were disappointed that it was closed as it was Sunday. Instead we visited the Silk Market. Built starting in 1482, the complex was constructed on a much older commercial exchange site. Fortunately, we got to see actual, for real Valencia oranges growing in the lovely courtyard of this imposing Gothic Renaissance structure.

As is our wont, Barbara and I then went to the railway station. We love trains, it's neat to see the wonderful architecture of these classic structures, and most important of all European train stations have clean rest rooms. (Yeah, yeah, we could have used the McDonald's free facilities, but I had spent a number of minutes hanging around the omnipresent fast food outlet using its free WiFi and didn't want to abuse our welcome--or be seen inside a McDonald's). See, we know how to live off the land in a fair and low impact way as tourists.

The best surprise at the train station (besides that we had two 50 euro cent coins and could actually use the toilets) was that the station's facade was decorated with Valencia oranges. So, maybe it's not really like "Chilean sea bass" which isn't necessarily from Chile and was renamed from the much more interesting, "Patagonian toothfish", or "Denver omelettes" which are called "Western omelettes" in Denver. Valencia really does grow their namesake citrus fruit.

Next to the train station was the obligatory bull ring which featured a statue of some Spanish guy. Oddly enough, and I'm not making this up, the statue commemorates Dr. Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. The Spanish, who apparently define all events in relation to their curious and brutal amusement, felt that since penicillin saved so many bullfighters' lives, they should put up this statue. My opinion is that the toreadors might have practiced safer sex and avoided all the grief. Just saying.

We hit the McDonald's via a different street for another WiFi fix and on the way discovered the lovely old Valencia telecommunications building, an architectural gem that features a replica of the Tesla tower in Long Island, New York, where the quite mad genius did his radio experiments. See, I said Valencia is a hoot.

We sailed out of the commercial harbor promptly at 6 pm and headed for Barcelona where we would fly to Lisbon for a couple of days and then begin the second part of our two ship cruise with at least half of our luggage already on board.