Pretty Valencia

The fountain in the main square of the newer section of town.
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I liked Valencia. It was a good mix of the new and the old with neither taking centre stage.

I arrived on the bus from Barcelona and walked through to the hostel (Indigo) which is on one edge of the old town. It took about 20 minutes to walk and it was quite pleasant as it was a lovely day and about 22 degrees (much better than the 10 degrees and windy that is was when I left Barcelona). I checked in and asked about any supermarkets nearby. I was told that there was a Consum around the corner but that it was having a siesta until 5pm. It must be such hard work being a supermarket. Since it was such a glorious afternoon, I decided to head out and wander around the town a bit.

One of the side chapel domes in the Cathedral
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Just up the road from the hostel are a couple of large old towers that used to be a gate into the city. There is no wall remaining and the towers look a little funny just standing out by themselves. You can't get really close for a good look at the moment because they are redoing the pavement around them and there are barriers up. I walked down the streets to the cathedral which is on one of the main squares in town. It is an odd looking thing with a main entrance that isn't square to the plaza and a tower that was clearly built separately to the rest of the church. I didn't go in as I was planning on doing it the next morning when the light is usually better inside. I headed down the square and into one of the main streets that run from the bottom of it. After a bit of twisting I came out into another square that has a large fountain and a Christmas tree covered in silver. It's the Plaza del Ayuntamiento and it is definitely the nicest square in town. The buildings are from varying eras but are all massive with elaborate facades. The fountain is also really pretty but if you sit down wind of it you do get a little wet. I sat in the square for a little while, enjoying the sunshine before heading  down further through town to the train station. It is a large and fancy Modernista building on the bottom edge of town. I then looped back around the ring road to the hostel. It still wasn't time for the supermarket to wake up yet, so I sat in a park and wrote in my journal for a little while. It started to get quite cold once the sun disappeared behind the buildings.

Looking at the side chapels behind the main altar
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I grabbed some food at the supermarket and headed back to the hostel for an early dinner (I hadn't had any lunch). The hostel has a really large common area and there is even TV that is in English which is great (most places here have Spanish channels only).

The next morning got off to a bad start with the accommodation for Granada and Cordoba issue but you can read about that in the next entry. After several hours on the internet trying to sort stuff out, I headed out into the city to have a look around. I started with the market which is in a cute little modernista building with a lovely glass dome. The market itself is nothing special though. I then headed through to the cathedral and headed inside. It is 3.50 to get in and this includes the audioguide. It is quite a good guide and is full of useful information about the church. The church was originally gothic but was renovated in the neoclassical style during the 18th century. Since then some of the neoclassical decorations have been removed and the appearance returned to the original gothic.

Here it is the Holy Grail!
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It is quite a large church with four side chapels on each side and six behind the altar. The ceilings are really high and there is lots of light coming in through the domes (both the central one over the altar and the ones in the side chapels). I'm not really into neoclassical style but the side chapels are quite pretty. There is a great Archangel Michael in one of the side chapels on the right. The main dome in the church is gothic with two layers of gothic arches letting light in. Valencia seems to have a lot of local saints and there are several reliquaries with bits and pieces of some of these saints.

They have scary demon things on the bridges here in Valencia
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The central altar is very OTT and is a shining example of the local Baroque according to the audioguide. Well it is definitely shiny! It has large doors to a cupboard that are quite lovely, saints, angles, gilding, painting, layering, more gilding. There is a lot in a very small space.

Behind the main altar are some more side chapels that have been adapted from the original gothic and you can see more of what they originally looked like. There is one quite spectacular one made of polished alabaster that contains the still intact arm of St Vincent (one of the local martyrs). Polished alabaster was used a lot in this area and is quite lovely. There is also a Madonna and Child made of it but it has also been painted and then gilded and has a golden crown so it isn't as nice. There is a lovely gothic style altarpiece, though the paintings on it are renaissance.

The Hemispheric
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Like all good churches in Spain, there are a couple of Goyas on the walls in one of the right hand side chapels. They are quite impressive pieces especially the one with the devils waiting for the soul of the dying. Through the front of this chapel, there is an entrance into the museum of the cathedral which has some interesting stuff. The first room is taken up nearly completely by a very large and very ugly gold thing. It has a monstrance in the centre and then like a little temple thing that is covered in angels and some saints. It is the largest piece of gold work done in the 20th century and was built by the church to say sorry to the South Americans. I think that they probably would have preferred to have the gold back.

Part of the park complex
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The next few rooms have artwork that used to be in the church or the church collection and is from different eras. There are paintings, wooden carvings, stonework, polychrome statues and metalware. There is some quite interesting stuff though lots of it is in poor repair unfortunately.

The final room is a side chapel as well and is gothic in style. It's the home of the holy grail that was brought to Spain from Italy to protect it from the Roman Emperors who seeked to destroy it. There is a huge gothic altar surrounding a niche with the cup sitting in the middle. It is in very good repair for something that is two millenia old. It didn't arrive in Valencia until the 15th century and has been in the cathedral ever since. Both Pope John Paul II and Benedict have used the cup during mass when they have been to visit the church. The ceiling in the room is really impressive with a large gothic star formed by the beams.

The Aquarium
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I left the cathedral and headed around the corner to the Place of the Virgin. This is another small church which has a large and supposedly miraculous statue of the Virgin and Child. It is huge and dressed in fancy embroidered clothing. Every year there is a parade and the statue is carried to the cathedral for a special mass. The church is being renovated at the moment so I didn't get to have a look around. I was going to then go back and climb the cathedral tower to look at the view over the city but just as I was going in, a group of about 40 eight year olds started up the stairs and I decided to give it a miss.

The most recent of the buildings is an Arts Centre
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So I headed across town and into the modern section of Valencia. I walked through the streets until I hit the riverbed (it isn't hard to find, walk in a straight line for long enough from just about anywhere in the old town and you will hit it). There used  to be a big river running through the city but for some reason it no longer has any water and they have decided not to waste the space. It has playing fields, parks, playgrounds, a jogging track, fountains and public buildings spread along its whole length. There are heaps of bridges going over it all so there is no traffic to contend with the whole way. It's really nice and quiet too since you are down below the main streets. I sat in the sun next to one of the fountains and ate my lunch before continuing on to the Centre of Arts and Sciences which is the big new modern section of town.

One of the signs in the park. I was completely befuddled.
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There is a museum, the Hemispheric (which is a planterium come IMAX), an aquarium and something called Titanic which I think is like an interactive ride thing. It is really expensive to go into these things though. A combined ticket to all of them is 38 euros. Most of that is the aquarium though which is 24 euros by itself. They are still working on new buildings in the complex and finishing off the art centre that is the most recent of the ones already built. It is free to wander around and look at the buildings and I think that is interesting enough in itself, especially when the weather is good.

The buildings are fantastic and are all large and white. They are surrounded by pools tiled in blue that reflect heaps of light back up into the air. Everything is geometric shapes and flowing curves and it looks really good. Modern architecture at its best. I had to backtrack after the aquarium because they are doing work down at the far end and you can't get through the park. The river actually exists at this end as well, so you can only get across at certain points.

I got back to the hostel mid afternoon and spent a couple of hours trying to sort things out on the internet and making phone calls (read next entry). I spent the evening in the hostel eating leftovers and having an early night before the lovely day on the bus (for 10 hours) on Wednesday.