Valencia, Spain's Third Largest City: Getting Oriented and the City Center, part 1

Today I'm going to talk about Valencia. This entry, or really these entries since this is the first of a four-part series, is _long_ overdue. First, it is worth saying that Valencia is Spain's third largest city. I'm going to say it again. Valencia is Spain's third largest city. No, not Sevilla. No, not Bilbao (not even close!). Yes, Valencia. It is not just some pitstop for beach paella, as Hemingway and many others would have you believe. I wouldn't be representing Valencia accurately if I didn't open with this common rant by other Valencia travel writers, and by sharing with you what is a deeply felt sentiment of Valencians: that their city is under-appreciated, always overlooked by others, and short-changed all around. 

There. I said it. There is something about being number three in a country Spain's size: "always a bridesmaid, never a bride". Call me a whiner if you want (but it's sooo true!). Well, if I have won any of you over with my other blog posts, and if you don't suspect me of complete and utter bias (guilty!), I'm going to go on the record here and say it: Valencia is a _must visit_ for anyone coming to Spain. Though maybe (hopefully) this no longer needs to be said. As early as 2005, Travel and Leisure was describing "Valencia's Renaissance", and Lonely Planet listed Valencia fifth on its top ten cities in the world to visit in 2011. There is way more going on here than paella (which arguably deserves a visit in its own right). So you need way more than 3 days to see even the basics (especially if you come during Fallas, which provides full-time distractions from Valencia's routine beauty). 

Top ten cities in Spain by population (though Bilbao as a metropolitan area jumps to #5).
I'm tired of having to explain where #3 Valencia is... It is halfway up on the eastern coast,
just above the little horn sticking out (it is opposite Palma de Mallorca from the Peninsula).
(Note what two cities don't make the cut: Pamplona and Granada.)

• The City Center:

Okay, got that out of my system. Now onto the content. Today I'm going to focus in on what is literally the core of Valencia, the city center. I always layout Valencia's center as a diamond formed by the River Turia riverbed park on the north (more to follow on that next entry!) and several important large avenues to the south. On the southside of the diamond, touching the southern point of what was once the old city wall, is the main train station (though it is no longer where long-distance trains arrive), the Estación del Norte next to the Plaza de Toros. The station is a marvel of modern architecture and regional iconography decoration, so I recommend you visit it whether or not you are catching a train there.

Aerial view of Valencia's historic center with general landmarks. Inside the
diamond you can see a circle formed by roads where the medieval wall once was.

The picturesque Estación del Norte and Plaza de Toros in the center of Valencia

The Station has just added a "Sala de Exposiciones" walled with "azulejos" and
classic regional and agrarian iconography

Heading north from the train station, the tourist center of Valencia flows out of three main plazas: Plaza del Ayuntamiento, Plaza de la Reina, and Plaza de la Virgin. Today I can only provide you a whirlwind tour, only briefly touching upon the main highlights of each. The Plaza del Ayuntamiento, as the name suggests, is home to the Town-hall. Opposite it is the Edificio de Correos (Central Post Office), whose metal and glass dome ceiling was recently renovated and is worth a look inside. Just to the west, on one of many pedestrian streets, you will find a great place to try typical Valencian dishes prepared by a quality and knowledgeable chef: Restaurante Navarro (C/Arzobispo Mayoral, 5, Valencia 46002; phone: 96 352 96 23). To the east of this plaza, walking along Calle de las Barcas (called such because allegedly in olden days the sea once reached here), you will see a lot of impressive building facades, not the least of which is the Edificio del Banco de Valencia. To the north of the Banco de Valencia shoots out Calle del Poeta Querol, Valencia's equivalent of the "Golden Mile". (It is there that you will find the Baroque Palacio del Marqués de dos Aguas, which includes the Museo de la Cerámica.) And starting at the foot of the Bank is a pedestrian shopping area leading east into the Colón shopping area (including the beautiful Mercado de Colón). For more on Valencia's shopping geography, see this guest post by Chic Soufflé.

The largest of the three, the Plaza del Ayuntamiento is often dressed up for
numerous events and public exhibits but also by the regular flower stands.

Valencia's Central Post Office in the historic Mail and Telegraph Building

The roof of the Post Office is worth a peak inside, which is free since this is an
ordinary functioning post office. This is also a peaceful place to sit and take a break.

The Banco de Valencia is one of many impressively decorated building facades in this area.

Located just to the northeast of the Plaza del Ayuntamiento is the Palacio del Marqués de Dos Aguas,
which is a must visit if you are interested in Baroque interior design and the history of Valencian ceramics.

Before continuing on north to the Plaza de la Reina, turn west on Calle de María Cristina to head towards the Mercat Central de València. This beautiful, main market is located in a modern building built between 1914 and 1928, which is easily one of the largest and most impressive still-functioning marketplace buildings in Spain. I'll save a more in depth discussion of it for later, but must say a couple of things about it here. First, it is a must visit, but you have to go in the morning (only open in the morning, until 3PM; closed on Sundays) and I'd avoid Mondays when the fish market is closed. Opposite the Market is La Lonja de la Seda, the 15th century Silk Market. Impressive if for no other reason than that it is an old, historic building in Spain that is _not_ religious in nature, the interior of this building is breath-taking, and I highly recommend the tour, since the history and iconography inside is really interesting. Rounding out this whirlwind detour is La Plaça Redona, a.k.a. the Round Square. There is little more to this square than its peculiar shape, but it is also home to market stands which sell traditional handmade products.

Inside the Mercat Central de València, both an architectural and cornucopian splendor.

See my entry on the Pardal i cotorra for some fun lore on the Market and
the nearby Iglesia de los Santos Juanes

The gargoyles of the Lonja, which stare across at the Mercat Central

A round square? Yep, the Plaza Redonda located a block off Calle de San Vicente Mártir
in between the Plaza del Ayuntamiento and the Plaza de la Reina.

The recently restored baroque Iglesia de San Martín is also worth a visit, and is located on
Calle de San Vicente Mártir between Plaza del Ayuntamiento and Plaza de la Reina.

Evidence for the descent in popularity of los Borgia:
In the 17th century these 15th century frescos,
commissioned by a Borgia, were covered up,
only to be uncovered again in 2004.

Historian's digression: The key to understanding what I will call "la Valencia profunda" is to think back to 1492 and its many cultural and economic ramifications for Spain. 1492? "What?!?" you might say. Well back in the 15th century Valencia was a cultural center not only for Spain, but for all of Europe. I have had many a medieval historian friend pass through Valencia and "go gaga" over all of its fascinating historical landmarks and namesakes for this period. For historians of science, for example, Valencia was one of two major ports of entry for important scientific ideas imported from the East and Mideast (the other port city being in Italy). Thanks to the silk trade among other things (whose importance is marked by the building of La Lonja), the city was also an economic powerhouse. (Another case in point, Valencia's most famous family, the House of Borgia, was at the height of its power during this period, giving the world two popes and investing in the city's local buildings and arts.) So when tanto monta, monta tanto Isabel and Fernando (through Christopher Columbus) opened the way to the West, the New World and all its riches, they were essentially undercutting Valencia's importance as a port to the East.


... In the next post I will continue through the city's center, where the we turn to those two oh-so-important genres of Spanish tourism: religious sites and art museums. And then we'll shift to one of the city's oldest and most vibrant neighborhoods, El Carmen...

Local Vocab: "Echar de menos"… homesick in Valencia, part 2

Yesterday I mentioned some good locales for hanging out whenever you're missing home, and started to shift gears to where you can buy products from home. Here I'll pick up where I left off...

• Shopping for expat products (cont.): 
One good centrally located place where you can find a bunch of expat goods, and support local business, is at Valencia's Mercat Central. In general the vendors at the Mercat Central specialize in regional produce, fish and meat. However, as a regular there, I've discovered several stands whose owners are catering to exotic, foreign tastes, and who sell many of the items that even El Corte Inglés fails to offer or offers at a much higher price. Probably the most valuable stands for expats are run by José Luis Meri, who is quite an entrepreneur and is actively canvasing the extpat community for ideas of what to carry. He runs three stands (#115), all located on the "Pasillo Luís Vives": "British Food.es" (self explanatory name, though also has a US section), "La + Latina" (with mostly South American, but some Central American products), and "Asiática" (Japanese and other asian products), the last of which is me and my wife's favorite since it opens up an entire continent of Asian cuisine for us at home.

That covers much of the typical guiri gastronomía. But probably this Texan's favorite stand in the Market is "Hierbas Frescas y Aromas Rafa y Maria José" (#259) located on "Pasillo Arquitecto Enrique Viedma". The owner of this stand shares with me a passion for spicy food, which I'm sure most of you have discovered is quiet uncommon in Spaniards. He always has some chili or hot pepper, usually carrying thai red chilis, an adequate substitute for many American chilis in Tex-Mex, but he also frequently has Habanero peppers… Yes! Habanero peppers, possibly the spiciest chili produced and sold on a mass scale. Most importantly, this summer (around July-August) they carried fresh jalapeños brought from a local Valencian farm that is able to produce it on a modest scale then. (I was cooking jalapeño dishes for weeks, and we still have a supply frozen in the freezer). For foodies, the best part of buying from his stand (which also carries other exotic produce and herbs) is that the owner always has ready suggestions on how to prepare the rare or unusual ingredients that he carries, i.e. he is a complete foodie himself and loves to cook.

Finally, if you've struggled to find baking ("repostería") ingredients for baking those American goodies you miss from home, there are couple of very helpful stands in the Market. You can rely on "Xocolates Vamm" for difficult-to-find chocolate ingredients, like white chocolate chips! There is another great stand for baking materials, whose name escapes me at the moment, but which I believe is located on "Pasillo Conde de Trenor" near the Calle Palafox entrance. My wife, who is quite the baker, has been thrilled to find ingredients there which seemed impossible to get elsewhere in Valencia/Spain.

For these and many other reasons, I highly recommend you take a stroll through the Mercat Central. I promise you I will one day give a much more thorough introduction to it in a future post. (I also suspect you can find plenty of exotic ingredients at the Russafa Market, given how international the neighborhood has become, but I have yet to go there.)

For those of you missing middle eastern food and ingredients,
there is a great stand located right off the center, El Racó de Feri

• The world is flat – Chains catering to global tastes:
And I could also mention the many familiar chains in Valencia importing or catering to American tastes… TGI Friday's is easily the best, with its happy hour cocktails offer and pretty decent Americana dishes. But there's also Tony Roma's, and then those paragons of globalization: McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, KFC, etc. My personal experience with these is that they are slightly different to what you'll find in the States: 1) slightly better quality ingredients, 2) mostly teenager/preteen clientele (as opposed to small children and parents), and 3) often the only easily accessible bathrooms in town… Which is why I've taken to referring to McDonald's as "free public bathroom" whenever traveling throughout continental Europe.

One longtime, popular "American Restaurant" here in Spain, with a couple of locations in Valencia, is Foster's Hollywood. Though themed as an American restaurant, it is actually a Spanish chain. And who could leave out Starbucks? Valencia has at least two locations, which seem to be popular with American expats and tourists… though for the life of me I can't understand why expats would frequent them. Nothing marks you as a guiri more quickly than hanging out there, and the coffee most everywhere in Spain is incredible, easily competes with Startbucks. (And, again, in Valencia you can find hip hangout places like En Babia or DeliKate.)

As much as I ought to resist assimilation to the big global corporations, it wouldn't be honest of me not to thank two Spanish chains for carrying a fair number of helpful expat staples: El Corte Inglés and Mercadona. I feel sorry for those of you living outside the Mercadona range in Spain, since it is incredible for its inexpensiveness, quality products, and for carrying many exotic, foreign products catering to the eclectic international tastes of college students. I've talked with Spaniards in the Basque Country, for example, who wished that Mercadona would open there. El Corte Inglés probably needs no introduction, but due to its expense I'll just say that you should only go here for products when you've made sure you can't find them anywhere else. (For example, this is where I get my maple syrup for our weekend pancakes, or certain canned chilies for my Tex-Mex dishes.)

One of the coolest things El Corte Inglés does is its Christmas lights displays.
If you have a chance to visit Barcelona during the Xmas season, I highly recommend
 you visit the Plaza de Cataluña at night, where there are at least four such displays.

And increasingly the web brings it all to your home. Amazon.es just got started up, and looks like it will eventually be as good as our Amazon.com back home at providing otherwise hard to get items online. (It also has a market place option, further enhancing Spain's secondhand products market.) At the moment, though, I also recommend you check Amazon.co.uk if dot-ES fails you, since often the shipping from the UK is free to Spain, and you find many more products catering to US-UK audiences there. And for those of you settled enough here in Spain to be building your own library, I recommend looking for non-Spanish language books at Bookdepository.com, though I read that it was purchased by Amazon, so I don't know how long it will maintain its independence…

And there you are, my long two-day homage to how I've foraged over the years in Valencia for products that let me maintain a connection with back home. You probably won't hear much more on this from me for a while. The truth is that, in general, Valencia is now my home. Most days I'm perfectly happy here, and cocido, tortilla de patatas, my mother-in-law's paella, these are my new comfort foods.

But we all have those days when we feel wistful and think nostalgically of where we grew up, of those tastes of our childhood and old acquaintances long forgot. If you ever need to explain this to a local… say they get a little exasperated with you for clinging to your old country customs… just tell them: "tengo morriña". The word morriña comes from a Gallego word (morrinha) which Galician sailors and fishermen might have used to express that sadness and nostalgia that would come over them on a long voyages out to sea and journeys away from home. It captures the kind of homesick melancholy that any Spaniard whose gone away for a while can relate to.

Once you've indulge that fresh jalapeño pepper binge, or heard that "last call" as you down the final pint at your local "paf", it will pass. Tomorrow morning you'll wake up hankering for that tortilla de patatas again and feel plenty excited about your new home.

Galicia has a long history of sailors on long journeys out to sea and, I just learned with the recent elections,
it is also not surprisingly the region with the highest percentage of citizens who vote by mail (i.e. don't reside there).

In Valencia: El pardal i la cotorra

So I was going to submit this photo to a fun photo contest, "looking up," for a (great) local Valencian expat magazine, InVLC, but I got around to it _way_ after the deadline. To make the most of it, though, I thought I'd post it here.

Looking up: On the left, the parrot that is perched above Valencia's Mercat Central,
on the right, Saint John's bird alighted on the Iglesia de los Santos Juanes next to the market

Pictured here is the (generic) bird, "el pardal de San Joan," of the Iglesia de los Santos Juanes and the parrot, "la cotorra del Mercat," over the Mercat Central de València. The two birds, perched within view of each other, have long been the subjects of local legends and playful stories. The church bird was long ago a symbol of economic good fortune to visitors who arrived to the city and spotted it from the steps of la Lonja. [Translator's note: pardal in Catalan can actually mean gorrión or sparrow, but my wife informs me that in Valencia pardal is used to refer to a generic bird. Since the castellano name is "el pájaro de San Juan," I'll default to the generic. To any biblical scholars out there, do you know what kind of bird was St. John's?] The parrot was the namesake of a popular Valencian music journal, La cotorra del Mercat, published by Leopoldo Magenti Chelvi in the 1940s; and in the 1990s the Market used a cartoon parrot as the protagonist of its educational materials for Valencian children who visited the market for school field trips.

There is nothing more adorable than watching kids on their field trip to the Mercat Central...
passing along to them the local knowledge and appreciation for L'Horta de València.

One such recurring story is that the two birds talk with each other, la cotorra (parrot) symbolizing the worldly and the mundane life of the Market, and also its chatty gossip (chismes y cotilleos), while el pardal (bird, sparrow) represents the more spiritual world of the church and higher ideals. These two conceptions of life, "el pardal i la cotorra," wordly and other-wordly, are thus locked in a constant imaginary argument about the many busy people and happenings below.

The gargoyles of La Lonja

There really are just so many interesting features of Valencia, thousands of such colorful stories attached to the City's many impressive institutions and local attractions, it's hard to tell them all. Just to give you an idea, these two birds also share the local terrain "above" with a dozen gargoyles, perched on la Lonja de la Seda, a.k.a. Silk Market, opposite the Mercat Central. (Indeed, some add a flourish to stories about the two birds by mentioning their trepidation for these neighboring denizens.)

I promise I'll get around to writing more about the culture of and things to do in Valencia, which is easily the most under-appreciated city in Spain.