Valencia: water?

Valencia, the third largest city on the Iberian Peninsula, little visited by Americans, seems to have pretty many Europeans in town enjoying the sunny weather. For me, I will always remember Valencia for its strange illusions to water.

1. Valencia has rerouted its River Turia. Quite common. What is unusual is that the whole river bed has been turned into a giant park (awesome idea), with the all bridges intact. So, everyone is always walking or driving across bridges over normal looking city parks, instead of water. Some bridges have a pool at their base, as if to dignify their existence

2. Valencia is very proud of its futuristic looking complex of cultural venues "City of Arts and Science, built in the same dry river bed. To me the real stroke of genius are the shallow aqua pools that tie the buildings together.

3. For hundreds of years the Water Council have held their weekly meetings outside one of the doorways of the cathedral. On this Thursday, the meeting took place as usual, among inordinate fanfare, except they had no business to discuss, so the meeting was adjourned as soon as it opened.

4. When we finally across the rerouted Turia, the river bed only had spotty puddles of water. Mild weather needs water to make Valencia the bread, rice, fruits, and vegetable basket of Spain, maybe even Europe?

5. The largest festival in Valencia, Las Fallas, is supposed to be all about fire. We are missing it by less than a month. On this Friday night, we caught another "correfoc" (firerun) in one of the suburbs as a consolation. Correfoc is definitely the highlight of my Spain visit so far.

Not to mention that the streets are washed, with detergent, day and night.


The Water Council meets each Thursday at the stroke of noon.




Correfoc (FireRun). Devils and their Demon.







Old bridge with a "dignifying pool" underneath.


Some shots of the City of Arts and Sciences, designed by Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava.














And here comes the horchata, and buñuelos (fried dough).




Valencia has tons of graffiti/murals.






Central Market.


I finally try out a Segway. My mouth is open cause I'm saying "look at me, look at me". ;-)


Monforte Garden.