All around Town and to the Beach

Monday, June 12, 2017--Valencia Spain

Today was one of our busier days.  Right after completing breakfast at the downstairs cafe, we headed to the Central Mercado, a very wonderful market. It is one of the busiest markets I have visited on the whole trip.  They have so many wonderful things for sale.

Across the street from it, we wandered around the Lonja, the old silk exchange.  It's a nice old building known for its gargoyles who are sometime doing "nasty" things.

Nearby, we went through an exhibit of silk products.  It's amazing that silk production has renewed itself here and that they have products at such reasonable prices--scarves, bags, fans, etc.  We could see the looms in the back room set up with punch card instructions on which treads to use for each line of weaving. Both of us marveled at how similar it was to the old punch card system for completion of computer programs and speculated that IBM probably based that system on the systems that already existed for weaving and for player pianos.

We stopped at the town hall to see its interior--the nice stained glass ceiling, the big reception room there.  Then we walked across the plaza to the post office to see its interior--thestained glass ceiling, old teller booths, etc.

By then, it was time for shops to close for siesta, so we got a ticket for Bus 25 and headed south of town passing the port and some rice fields before coming to Devesa Beach.  There are closer beaches to town, but this one is undeveloped and remote which makes it rather special.  From the bus stop, we walked through pine forests, around a lake, and over to the beach.  Only a few people were there.  Half the beach is with clothing, and the other half is a nudist beach.  Where we entered was the midpoint.  We could see clothed bathers to our left and nude ones to our right.  Wes tested the waters and pronounced them warm, but we didn't go swimming.  We didn't bring towels or anything necessary for doing so.  We just wanted to be out of town in nature and enjoy the afternoon while nothing was happening in town.  We walked along the beach for some way which brought us to another trail to lead us back to the bus stop.

We arrived back in town around 18:00.  From the bus stop, we walked to Plaza de la Cedre which the guidebook had said is a popular local square for snacks and meals.  Not much was happening.  Maybe it was because it was Monday.  But we bought pisto empanadas at a bakery and ate them in the plaza.  Pisto is the tomato-eggplant-squash dish we ate recently from the to-go food place.  It was just as good this time inside a pastry.


From there, we walked down a very broad boulevard named Avenida de Blasco Ibaniz which passes through many buildings of the University of Valencia campus.  At the end, we walked through the Jardins del Real stopping at a cage with lots of birds--parrots, parakeets, doves, etc.  It was fun there watching the people.  One man had brought sunflower seeds and was feeding them directly to the birds who recognized him and came to him to get them.  Two women were whistling and talking to the birds and feeding them stale bread which they had soaked in water.  I'm guessing these people go there regularly if not nightly.

Back home, we sat on the outdoor patio for our happy hour and visited with a British man we had met two nights before.  Again, he offered us some of the olives he had bought at the market we had visited this morning.  He told us the story about being here to surprise his son and his son's girlfriend.  The son has been living in Australia and he and his Colombian girlfriend (also from Australia now) had come to Valencia to begin a tour of Spain and Italy before going to visit family in England.  The father, using information from his other son, surprised this son by showing up where he and the girlfriend were there.  After a failed attempt to meet him at the Science Museum at the City of Sciences, he found them at a cafe where he had been told by his other son that they would be.  Just as he approached his son, the son turned to take a photo.  When he started to show the photo to his girlfriend, the father moved in and looked closely at it and made a comment about it.  Only then did the son realize that it was his father. As we had our nightly happy hour on the deck, the son and the girlfriend arrived, so we were introduced and visited with them briefly before they went out to dinner.

We finished our happy hour, and it was 21:45, so we came to the room for the evening.  We only have one more full day here.  On Wednesday, we will go to a hotel near the airport so we can easily make it to our 6:35 flight the next morning.  Therefore, tomorrow is our last full day to enjoy our stay in Valencia.