Two interesting things about Valencia. First: the river Turia, around which Valencia was built, was artificially rerouted in 1957 following a disastrous flood. As you'll see from a glance at the map, the river is no more. It has ceased to be. It's an ex-river. The empty riverbed has been converted into a very long and very thin park, full of ponds and pavilions and pitches and other nice pleasant things. At the far eastern end of the park is the City of Arts and Sciences, an impressively huge combination of aquarium, science museum, IMAX theatre and performing arts venue. It deserves praise as a large and striking assemblage of contemporary architecture that is, against all odds, not completely hideous. See pictures below.
The other interesting thing about Valencia is that it's the official home and birthplace of paella. To get proper official authentic paella in a reputable restaurant, you have to order two portions at once, because that's how big the paella pans are and it's always cooked to order. I'm reliably informed that paella restaurants selling individual portions do so with the aid of freezers and microwaves. Since I'm here by myself, and since there are limits to my greediness (honest), I've opted not to bother.
In Spanish, officially, the name of the city is pronounced with the ending '-thya'. But the Valencian region has its own language, a variety of Catalan, in which it ends with '-sya'. And that's how the locals say it, whatever language they're speaking. So if anyone ever smugly tries to correct you for not using the 'th', you can be extra smug right back. I myself haven't had the chance to do so just yet, but I'll be ready when the opportunity comes.
Continuing on the linguistic theme, some of you may have noticed that although my blog title from Cádiz included the accent on the 'a', my Seville blog was titled in that Anglicised way and not as Sevilla. I try not to worry too much about always using the 'correct' spellings, and certainly I think you would all roll your eyes at me if I datelined a blog from Münschen rather than 'Munich'. In the same way, I'm sure none of us Brits are bothered about Spanish tourists asking for directions to Londres, or la plaza Trafalgar. I certainly wasn't troubled to hear footballer Gareth Bale's surname referred to as 'Bah-lay'. Anyway, the point is that there's always ambiguity when it comes to pronouncing the names of foreign places, not least because Spanish - like almost all foreign languages - uses noises that just don't exist in English. In this blog, I shall simply continue to make it up as I go along, so please bear with me.
And mentioning Gareth Bale leads me to explain how his name came up in my hearing. I paid a visit to the Mestalla stadium, along with 45,832 others, to see Valencia 2 Real Madrid 1. (Spain thus becomes the fifth foreign country in which I've watched professional football. The other four are Chile, Argentina, the USA, and Scotland.) Outside the stadium, the pre-match milling masses were producing exactly the same acrid cloud of lager, sweat, tobacco and testosterone that I'm used to back in England. Inside the Mestalla you can smoke, but you can't buy or drink alcohol, which is surprising because so far on this trip I've benefited greatly from liberal Spanish licensing laws. You can generally get a glass of wine pretty much anywhere. Just not at the football.
It was a good game, and an unexpected triumph for the home team. Watching Ronaldo and co ping it around, even though they finished on the losing side, was a bit of a step-up from what I endure at Sunderland every other weekend. And the pre-match TV interviews reminded me that, no matter how bad my Spanish is, at least I'm trying. Which is more than can be said for Gareth Bale, who's still spouting his cliches in English, three and a half years after signing for Madrid. Yellow card.
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| Town hall |
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| Pre-match at the Mestalla on a hazy early evening. Note the ridiculously steep stand to the right. The stadium is squeezed into the downtown street grid: they had to build up, not out. |
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| Valencia's indoor market. It's one of the biggest in Europe. Sort of like Jacky White's in Sunderland, but times twenty. |
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| Museum of Fine Arts, and trees bearing oranges. |
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| Palau de la Música ('Music Palace' or 'Palace of Music' are the only realistic translations... ...neither of them seem to work.) |
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Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, at the City of Arts and Sciences.
Verdi's 'La Traviata' was on, but it had already sold out.
From this angle you can clearly see the 'Roman helmet' design, facing left.
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| Science museum at the City of Arts and Sciences |
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| Edd vs Food #53 Home cooking. I was getting a bit sick of tapas. Recipe as follows: Slice and fry three chorizo sausages. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes to the pan. In a different pan, boil some pasta for however long it says on the packet. Drain the pasta and serve. |
