endless summer
You don’t have to go to a tropical island to
escape winter. Europe has its own slice of sunshine in
Valencia, where the tapas is cheap and the living is easy.
TEXT MICHAEL HAMMERSCHLAG feedback
 Flying into Valencia, you are instantly
aware you’ve left small, dark Northern Europe far behind. The
land is expansive, bright, sunny, open and sprinkled with
cookie-cutter towns. The Spanish live well: a sense of style
and care permeates everything — food, architecture, art — and
Valencia is quite cheap by European standards.
Arriving in this city of 1.8 million people in early
January after a freezing Paris and a cold, cramped Amsterdam
was simply bliss. It was 14 C the first day, 19 C the next,
and ripe oranges were falling off the trees. I stayed at the
Center Valencia, a bright clean hostel right in the center of
old town, by Plaza de las Virgens and the 14th-century
Serranos Tower (an old gate to the city). The historical hub
is a maze of winding streets, brightly lit medieval buildings,
big plazas with fountains and high church towers you can
actually ascend for astonishing views. Valencia was a Roman
City (you can never get away from Rome) from 138 B.C., and
destroyed by general Pompeii only 58 years later in a civil
war. The town has an incredible long and convoluted history:
Valencian is another language similar to Catalonian, and
Valencia was a semi-independent kingdom for centuries, and
even became the capital of Republican Spain in the Civil War
with Franco, during which it was the last to fall. The
historical center is eminently foot-friendly. I only took the
metro twice, once from the airport: the numerous grand tourist
sites can all be visited on foot.
Of the 49 museums in town, about half are free, and the
rest are only one or two euros — a welcome change from
Northern Europe. The majestic City of Science and Industry has
a raft of radical 1968-ish seashell spaceship buildings: an
opera house, science museum, an Imax theater and a huge
oceanographic center. There is a neat Modern Art museum, IVAM,
while the Bellas Arts museum chronicles the entire history of
art in Spain. Both are free and open through siesta. There’s a
large bullfighting ring by the train station, with a whole
museum devoted to this strange savage sport. On the whole,
Valencia isn’t as spoiled as Barcelona, which was
half-devastated by the ‘92 Olympics. Although this city is on
about the same latitude as Manhattan, it is a place without
winter, and one of the very warmest spots in the
Mediterranean.
You can go into any restaurant in Valencia without a horde
of waiters descending on you: just stroll in, check out the
people, plop down and study the menu — they will come to you
when you want and not try to get rid of you when you hang
around for an hour after you’re finished. This is all part of
a relaxed kind of class that Valencia has. In Plaza de la
Reina, a neat tapas cafe had 20 different finger slice
sandwiches on toothpicks with shrimp and lettuce, cheese, red
peppers and sauce, sausage and mustard — beautiful artistic
things that you take out of the cases from the bar and eat at
will. At the end they count the toothpicks and charge you —
$2.25 each. At tapas bars, they give you them for free when
you have drinks. But the most famous Valencian delicacies are
the paella and the little-known horchata — a delicious sweet,
white drink made from vanilla, almond and tiger nut.
The massive 1262-1660 cathedral dominates the central Plaza
de la Reina, with a 51-meter tower that affords a spectacular
view of the city. When the huge bell strikes, you can watch
your neighbors’ teeth vibrate. It houses the holy chalice of
Christ’s last supper, a relic which Pope Benedict used in a
2006 visit. Next door is the ancient Basilica of the Virgin
and La Almoina Archeaological Museum, which displays the
excavated original Roman center and streets under a glassed
ceiling. Another equally tall tower, the Santa Catalina, rises
on the other side of the square. For 530 years, Valencia was
an Islamic city, part of the Moorish conquest that absorbed
most of Spain, and parts of the Islamic walls are preserved.
The west-side Museum of History of Valencia (there are three
altogether) has dioramas that showcase the people, dress, and
activities of 50 different eras in four languages. On the west
side of the center, there is one of the largest covered
markets in Europe, where the 16th-century plush gothic Silk
Exchange was the source of Valencia’s financial boom in the
18th century.
After a devastating 1957 flood, the Turia River (which
winds around the northern part of the center) was drained,
diverted, and turned into a huge park called the Garden of the
Turia. Today it is chock full of botanical gardens, museums,
sports facilities, and a bicycle trail. This is the site of
the world-famous Las Fallas Festival, a traditional fiesta
with four-storey puppets, locals in historical dress and huge
fireworks displays. And if you come before March 19 you can
join in the fun.
• Getting there — RyanAir flies there from Britain for
peanuts, but be aware of the insane 15-kilo checked bag limit.
From Moscow, Iberia flies there for approximately $470
round-trip. The metro runs right to the airport.
• Visas — Spain is, of course, a part of the E.U., so
Russian and C.I.S. citizens need a Schengen visa. U.S.,
Canadian, New Zealand, Australian and Japanese citizens can
travel without a visa for up to 90 days.
• Accommodation — The Center Valencia hostel has clean and
comfortable shared rooms from 14-24 euros per night. If you’re
looking for more privacy, or something more luxurious, try the
Hotel Las Arenas Balneario Resort, which is right on the beach
and has double rooms from 166 euros.
• Siesta — Valencia observes the siesta, which means that
things are open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., closed from 2 p.m. to
4:30 p.m., then open again from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. This
includes stores and government offices. A few museums stay
open through siesta (grab the “Tourist Guide to Valencia” in
English at a tourist center to find out which). Dinner is
wonderfully late: 9-11pm, so you can tour till you drop,
return to the hotel, rest, then eat.
• Language — Having colonized three-quarters of a
continent, few Spanish speak English or anything else, so
bring a phrase book. Spanish is pronounced exactly as
spelled. |
