Plank Road: Valencia

This morning we walked a couple of km to the Mercato Central, which is in the old part (Ciutat Vella) of Valencia. This is a huge food market in a wonderful Moderniste building made of cast iron. The market wasn’t too busy when we got there, mostly just locals grocery shopping, but it started to get a lot busier by the time we left. There are more food products in this market than you can imagine, we purchased enough supplies to last us to the end of our stay in Valencia. We were foaming at the mouth over the beautiful, crisp heads of romaine lettuce, for about .75 Canadian per head.

After we came back to our apartment to drop off our groceries, we went out to walk down a portion of the Turia Riverbed park, which is a 7 km green space that runs through the city. The Turia river used to flow through the city, but after severe flooding, the river was diverted and the riverbed is now a park.

We walked by the Palau de la Musica so we stopped in and purchased tickets to a concert by the Valencia Orchestra and the Philharmonic Chorus for this evening. I asked the woman at the ticket desk to pick the seats for us, as we had no clue which seats to select. There were not that many seats left but she selected good seats for us in the balcony section. Then we walked down to the City of Arts and Sciences.

The City of Arts and Sciences is a group of futuristic looking buildings designed by the Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava. He really went wild with his designs.

We really walked a lot today, something like 5 hours or so, it is more difficult to walk on flat, hard surfaces than it is to walk up and down mountains. Although, this is a great walking city and the sweet scent of orange blossoms is everywhere. We have noticed that the Valencians carry substantially more body weight than people in other parts of Spain, we think this is due to the flat terrain here, they don’t have to trudge up and down steep hills, so they don’t burn off the Valencian oranges and pastries that they are eating. This is quite the food city, people eat and drink everywhere and at all hours.

We were lazy but had to keep moving when we got back from our long walk, as we had to have tea and then get dinner cooked so we could go to the concert tonight. We were sitting at the concert wondering where all of the concert goers were, then they all blew in at the last minute and the concert hall was almost full.

The conductor was hilarious to watch, he knows the dimensions of his podium because he was quite dynamic and glided around the podium, sometimes very near to the edge. The first piece was for violin, by Camille Saint-Saens, the guest violinist came from Israel. He was very good and the audience gave him three ovations, then he came back and played an encore.

It was time for intermission so we went to wander around the building, they had cava stations set up, selling glasses of cava along with some small snack plates of some sort.

The next piece was by Rossini, this included a soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and a bass singer, as well as the huge choral group. The piece was long, lasting 70 minutes or so and we didn’t want it to end, it was absolutely fantastic. The acoustics in the concert hall were exceptional and the choral group was unbelievable. The conductor became even more animated, he did not have the sheet music to read, he just knew it all. The concert really was spectacular, we were quite in awe.

After the concert, we walked back to the City of Arts and Sciences to take a few nighttime pics, then we walked back to the apartment, there are people on the streets everywhere at night. It took us about an hour to walk back, now, we really were fed-up with walking for the day.

Mercato Central