4 ~ Hello from Valencia & Barcelona, Spain

Hello Everyone,

After the language school week in Belmonte, we made two quick stops, three days each, in Valencia and Barcelona, before heading home. The terrorists attacked Manchester while we were in Valencia, and England went to “critical” alert status. That trips all kinds enhanced security precautions for air travel in Europe, so we decided to leave extra time before our flight and went to the airport way earlier than normal on our day of departure. That turned out to be a good idea. At the airport Carol’s checkin went smoothly, but, by chance, I got selected for “enhanced” inspection behind closed doors. At first I thought, “well, I’ve never had a body cavity search before. That could be an interesting experience!” But then I thought “hummm….. maybe that would be a good one to push into my next life.”

As it turned out, they just spent about 20 minutes swabbing me, my cloths, my shoes and socks, my watch, my iPad & iPhone and everything in my suitcase for explosives. No harm done. We still had plenty of time to catch our flight. When I came out of the security room one of the officers said that the crowds were building and within 30 minutes the wait would be three hours long. Three cheers for arriving at the airport early. I’m writing this at 31,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean on the way to Atlanta. In selecting me for extra inspection they also denied my “pre-check” fast inspection status for this trip. Our layover is short in Atlanta, and without “pre-check”, I will likely have to stand in the long security line when re-entering domestic security after clearing customs and immigration there. Fingers crossed that we will make our connection to Seattle. (PS: As it turned out, we just made our Atlanta connection, arriving at the gate as they were boarding).

Valencia turned out to be a delightful place to visit. It’s the third largest city in Spain and, being right on the Mediterranean, is a favorite for beach comers looking for a tan. Not being “beach people” (although we did eat the famous Paella dinner one night at a beach restaurant), we spent most of our time visiting the central historical city where everything from Roman ruins to early twentieth century modernist architecture to the ultra futuristic arts and sciences complex is located. Their giant cathedral houses many unusual large paintings along with the mummified forearm and hand of Saint Vincent the martyr. They have a beautiful 19th century steel constructed marketplace that is the main place to shop for fancy fruits, vegetables, chocolates, meats, oils etc. And, they offer samples of everything to entice you to buy. Across the street is the beautiful 15th century gothic silk market that has been recently preserved as a museum.

In Valencia, we signed up with “eatwith.com” to have a home made meal prepared for us by a local 40 year old woman named Victoria. We spent a delightful evening at her home with her and one of her friends talking about Spain, traveling and the vegetarian food she cooked.

Valencia has a “one of a kind” park that meanders around the city. It used to be a river but after the flood of 1959, the government decided to reroute the river around the city to prevent future floods. That left the riverbed as available land for development. However, it became a wasteland until the mid 1980’s, when they decided to develop it for public parks and recreation. There are 19 bridges that separate the riverbed into 14 unique parks. Near the end, where the river used to flow into the ocean they have recently constructed an ultra futuristic complex of buildings housing a 3D theatre, opera school, science museum complex, flower conservatory and other attractions. It’s an amazing place that would take a day or two to explore completely. And, of course there are some pix in the photo gallery of it.

One morning we signed up for a bicycle tour of the old city and the river parks. The tour was initially fully reserved, but everyone except us canceled at the last minute. We ended up with a private 3 hour bicycle tour. Our tour guide was an ancient history professor, named Mina, from the university, that moonlights as a tour guide, just to exercise on her bike, have fun and meet people she can practice English with. She was a delight to be around and taught us the history of the old city in a fun and humorous way.

On the third morning here we walked to the train station to catch our train to Barcelona. At the station we walked out to the platform to wait for our train. Our car number was 20 so we figured that we must be near the end of a long train of approximately 20 cars. The problem was that we didn’t know if he train would come in head first or tail first, and neither did anyone else. Walking the length of 20 cars would take some time. So, everyone stood out along the track platform in a place where they guessed their car might stop. We decided to go near the middle, so we would be at least half way to our car, wherever it stopped. The train arrived with 23 cars, tail end first. Suddenly, there was chaos on the platform beside the train. Everyone was rushing back and forth, pulling their luggage behind them, trying to reach their designated car. Eventually, things settled down and the people disappeared into the train cars. Italy has a better idea. They mark the numbers of the cars on the platform where they will stop and then plan for that car to stop there. Maybe Spain will someday take a lesson from their Mediterranean neighbor. Other than that the trains worked really well for us. On to Barcelona.

Barcelona, the second largest city in Spain, is a beautiful city, brimming with early 20th century architecture, maybe unparalleled anywhere in Europe. Since the Olympics were held here in 1992, the city has been on a revitalization binge like no other, and has restored much of its famous architecture to its original glory. The famous architect, Antoni Gaudi, built offices, residences, parks and the unique Sagrada Familia Church that are world renowned. All of this success is possibly this city’s biggest failure. It is now completely overrun by tourists. I have never seen so many hoards of tourists anywhere. Maybe I’m just not used to traveling near the high season? Tourism is the paradox of cities like Barcelona. It brings in much needed money, but if it gets too big, it destroys that which brought the tourists (and money) in the first place. And, yes, Carol and I are part of it. It’s a huge dilemma. The world is dramatically increasing the number of tourists, but the number of tourist destinations remains roughly the same. Some people here are talking about how to discourage tourism. Others say that it is just temporary because it currently is a safe easy destination for tourists while other places have become spoiled with war and terrorism. And with that, let’s talk a little about Barcelona.

Probably the most famous building here is the Sagrada Familia Church. When we visited it 25 years ago, it was an underfunded, much delayed dream of Antoni Gaudy and his followers. It was making very slow progress with just a few bell towers and an undercroft. Today, though still not finished, it has most of it towers completed and the entire inside of the sanctuary is now functional. In fact it was consecrated as a church just a few years ago. It is expected to be completed in the early 2020’s to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. Most of Gaudi’s creations are very whimsical and covered with colored tiles. They sometimes look like full sized gingerbread houses dripping with frosting. They are quite spectacular

Elsewhere in the city is the famous Sant Pau hospital complex. Started in 1902 and built in the early modernist style, it eventually reached 12 huge buildings by 1930. The buildings were covered with colored ceramic tiles and mosaics both inside and out. Large domes and huge windows covered the buildings. It’s hard to believe a hospital was built with this kind of art and beauty included within its buildings. It was a free hospital in the city. Medical technology was primitive at that time, but the center became a leading research center until it was finally closed and moved to more modern facilities in 2009. Then it was restored into a beautiful museum complex and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The last building I want to mention is the Palau Concert Hall. It also is covered in ceramic tile with beautiful stained glass windows and wonderful art. It’s just too incredible to describe. I have included pictures of some of these buildings in our photo gallery.

Of course there is more to Barcelona than the architecture. The food is quite excellent as well. We have been enjoying tapas of all kinds. As I mentioned earlier, they have great non-alcohol beer here. All he breweries have it. Carol has been on a search for the lowest calorie brand. Most are around 25 calories per bottle, but we found one last night that was just 17 calories. At that rate you can drink a lot of it without affecting your figure. 😉 Food is reasonably priced here but it is quite expensive to pay the entry fees to get into the museums and other sites. To visit one of the Gaudi buildings cost almost $30 to enter. Even that is not discouraging the tourists. The lines to enter are very long. We have been taking advantage of a serious discount for the “elder” community (Mejors in Spanish), and loving it. There is a very good subway system here that can take you anywhere in no time for just one Euro.

A few final observations about Spain before I close. Most Spanish women, both young and old, wear their hair very long (and their hot pants very short!) and they look very good. We found the Spanish people to be very friendly and very sincere. No one ever tried to short change us. We never had to count our change like we do in Italy. Taxi drivers are honest and helpful. Shopkeepers and restauranteurs are polite and not pushy. It was a delightful place to visit and I would highly recommend a visit here. Just come in the early spring or late fall, when the weather is still good and the tourists are still asleep.

I have included some pix in the photo gallery for your viewing pleasure.

If you haven’t seen Carol’s recent blog about Valencia check it out here:

https://carolapucci-tips.blogspot.com/2017/05/valencia-spains-low-key-third-city.html

Next stop is home sweet home. I think I need a vacation from vacationing.

Until next time…… your favorite travelers, Tom and Carol