dianekendig - Diane and Paul in Valencia

2007: Where We Stayed, Ate, Went

***Where We Stayed-Hostal Antigua Morellana

(Photo of Paul with Luna. Below, the room.)

This was my very favorite hostal of the four we stayed in. Like all the rest, it was clean, centrally located, and very reasonable. The lobby has a photo of four sisters in the 1970's, two of whom run the hostal with their husbands and the place's mascot, Luna, a beautiful Malamute who lies quietly on the cool tiles. In addition, our room was charmingly decorated with yellow walls and a bright red bedspread with a green and gold print, all softened by blond furniture and Roman blinds at the balcony. The bathroom was white with a hair dryer, such a luxury. Air conditioning blocked the street noise. The four family members were muy amable and even called a taxi at 6 am when we had to leave. I loved this place and the people who peopled it.

***Where We Ate...and drank

We really don't have any restaurants to recommend because we fell in love with the market and made most of our meals out of fruits, vegetables, cheese, and breads we bought there. Valencia is the garden of Spain and after the meat, meat, meat and canned white asparagus of Segovia, which was terrific if repetitious, it was wonderful to lay hands literally on so much local market produce. We had some mediocre paella at Pepe Picos's and a good tortilla tapa at Lisboa. We loved Agua de Valencia, a drink of orange juice, vodka, and cava, said to have been invented in Valencia for some Basque businessmen, and we had a sweetish one at Lisboa and a drier one at Cava del Negret, both just very fine.

***Where We Went

As always, we walked and hung around plazas a lot, loved this rakish guy in the fountain (and the naked one behind him, too.) We sat around drinking orange juice and agua de Valencia. AND, we visited two main sites in our day and a half in Valencia.

The Museum of Fine Arts

Have I mentioned that Valencia can be very hot in mid-September? And the museum is very cool, very quiet, very beautiful. We promenaded slowly in the beginning through the early, interminable, ultra-religious Spanish art, among which we found the exciting Triptych of the Passion of Christ by the followers of Bosch--and even if it was only by the followers, they were definitely taking notes from their leader. It was wild and weird with clear symbols. We also found yet another painting based on Judith of Bethulia, about whom I have written a long poem. This one is titled Judith con la cabeza de Holofernes by Bartholomeus Spranger (1611). Lots of Spanish Impressionism, late, gardens of Aranjuez and The Escorial, lots of the usual seascapes. Lots of earlier still-lifes, a precious one of a monkey reaching into a fish bowl. A striking Goya, Portrait of Joaquina Candado.

The Museum House of Blasco Ibanez

Since we hit every literary site we can, I was sort of jazzed about seeing the seaside house of Ibanez, even though I don't think I have yet read a whole novel by him, since in my Segovia class, we spent the whole time reading a big textbook describing each famous author rather than actually reading their works. My textbook calls him "the last naturalist," known for The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which was made into a movie. The house is recently refurbished and beautiful, just across the street from the beach, with two huge palm trees in the back planted by Ibanez. The two docents who met us seemed house-effacing about the fact that the important papers weren't here, but they let us go off on a self-guided tour, beginning with an outline of his life in the stairway, then rooms of personal family effects: his wife's haircombs and purses, his daughter's wedding pictures, some favorite drawings, his son's writing--that is what a writer's house has, and I thought it was charming, as were the docents, who gave us a newletter and a beautiful collection of ten postcards based on Ibanez book covers. I told them what a hard time I had getting there and finding the place, that Turismo doesn't seem to know anything about literary sites, not only there but anywhere in Spain, and they of course were very sympathetic.

After we visited the house, we walked along the beach, nearly deserted because it was considered the end of the season, though here in Massachusetts, it would be a warm day on the beach.

The back and front of Ibanez's house at Malvarrosa, a Valencian beach

Travel by train in Spain

We tend to go everywhere by foot and by train, occasionally a cab. Neither of us likes to drive all that much, and we like the core of cities-- the nitty gritty part, the Bohemian part, don't usually need the burbs or the bergs. So we planned this trip to take the train and walk.

Since I speak Spanish, getting schedules and tickets usually falls to me, and I can get nervous over the process. I was helped immensely by the website, TravelingSpain.com, its page on the Spanish rail system: for every city we had to get in and out of, we were able to read Jerrold Van Nocker's description of the station layout and where to find what. We took his advice and visited the train station the day before we would be leaving, checked the place out, then went back early the day of our trip and usually spent no time getting tickets and getting on.

Valencia train platform

We ran into three little glitches in our travels, two about which we can give you advice on. First, travelling to Segovia: we were given a receipt and two tickets--I thought. When the conductor came for our tickets, I handed them over. But that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted something else. I told him that was all I had. He was very very nice and polite but insisted I had two real tickets. No, I knew I didn't have two other pieces of paper. I did have the receipt. I got it out, and lo and behold, it wasn't a receipt and it wasn't one: it was the two slips of paper he wanted. We didn't have to have these on any of our other three train trips. The solution is to hang onto each shred of paper you are given,

Including the teeny ticket (sort of like the old tickets for carnival rides) that you have to have to get out of the turnstile in the Madrid station, the second glitch we ran into. I kept that by accident our first day, and when we saw everyone else stick their teeny ticket in the exit slot, we did too--because no ticket, no exit, as we learned when we returned from Segovia, where they had given us no exit ticket. What to do? Standing trapped and desperate got us nowhere, SO I asked our friend, Mr. Policeman. He rolled his eyes and turned away, and I followed him, thinking he was going to lead me to a ticket. Instead, he engaged a lovely young blond transit employee in conversation. I waited till he was done, then surprised him when he turned around and found me waiting and asking again how to get out since they didn't give us a ticket in Segovia. He finally led us to the window for tickets to Segovia, where the agent asked to see our train ticket, and he gave us an exit ticket. Little did Sartre know that's all it takes.

The third glitch we ran into was not the Renfe system, but the Valencia metro. Paul got directions at Turismo to get to the Blasco Ibanez Museum by Metro. When we got to the stop, none of the ticket machines worked. I asked a young woman what to do about that, and she said just get on and if anyone onboard asked us for a ticket, tell them what happened and they'd "let us go." I did notice that a party of four who couldn't get tickets left, rather than get on the train without. We finally boarded with no one in charge of collecting the fare, and I waited the whole time to be busted, clutching my 1.20 Euros to show that I had had all intentions to pay. The same thing happened on the way back. If anyone at the Valencia Metro would like our 4.8 Euros for this stolen trip, please email Paul, who thought my worrying about it was funny and that it was a nice adventure in cheap travel.

Diane and Paul in Valencia

September 17-19

***Where We Ate...and drank