Valencia

Trip Start May 05, 2008
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Trip End May 09, 2009


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Wednesday, July 2, 2008

After spending a long time in Southern Spain, coming to Valencia feels like going to a different country. We had to take a night train from Granada which left halfway through to European championship final game, when Spain beat Germany to take the cup, so unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?), we missed out on the ensuing mayhem which were the celebrations in the streets of all Spanish towns. We woke up in a pretty modern city where the look of the place is different from southern Spain, the language spoken is differen (Catalan), and people even act differently: it really is hard to believe you´re in the same country. We got here very early in the morning, and had to check our bags in the rain station lockers, because the grumpy hostel manager refused to let us in on the premise that we had not gotten to the hostel within its opening hours. So we did our sight-seeing between 6am and about 3pm and finally checked into the hostel, which had an excellent location and clean bedrooms. Unfortunately, we suspect the manager/owner to be related to the fascist dictator Franco, because he had plastered signs everywhere about such rules he had concocted such as no food or drinks in the rooms, no walking around barefoot, no loud talking, no alcohol of any kind, and many other rules which are undoubtedly a very good idea for attracting repeat customers in a so-called youth hostel.
The downtown core is packed with gorgeous Art Deco and Art Nouveau buildings lining wide stately avenues. There are a few historical buildings, including the stylistic mish-mash cathedral which took 4 centuries to build and which houses the only Holy Grail recognized by the Vatican (when we went it was not during the hours when we could acually see it). Around it, there are a lot of 70s style appartment buildings, and about 5 kilometers from he core, lies the pride and joy of the city: the Arts and Sciences center, which is a collection of very futuristic buildings which house a series of museums. Virginia was very excited to see the oceanographic museum, which is indeed quite pretty, but leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It promotes itself as an institution which strives to spread awareness about the environment, but does this in such a shamelessly commercial and contradictory fashion that it makes a mockery of the whole idea. Right next to the sign talking about the importance of energy saving, doors are propped wide open on while the air conditioning runs full-blast, and 5 euros slices of pizza are the cheapest thing on the menu and come with about a kilo of disposable plastic utensils... Still, the pictures are pretty and the architecture interesting.
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