Saint Vincent was a third century Spanish church deacon from Saragossa who was martyred in 303 for preaching his faith, on orders from the Roman Emperor Diocletian. He’s also the patron saint of Madrid and is revered in other cities across the Catholic world. He’s a busy chap. Valencia Cathedral has what it claims is his uncorrupted arm preserved in its crypt. So he has a pretty special relationship with the city.
More on the procession later.
I forgot to mention… The other night when I was coming home from my afternoon/evening walk around the old city, I came upon a huge pro-Palestinian rally in the centre. The crowd had flooded out onto Xativa street, a major artery, part of the inner ring road. It blocked traffic on the road and pedestrians on the sidewalks in front of the bullring. I was on a bike and had to detour around. Luckily there was a pedestrian route between the bullring and the train station, despite the construction on that street, and I was able to get home without going too far out of my way.
I don’t know if the majority of Valencians necessarily sympathise with the Palestinian cause. The crowd seemed young, though, and I think the young everywhere are more apt to side with the Palestinians. Not that my sympathies aren’t mostly with the Gazan civilians at this point, but it’s a bit unnerving to see large crowds of people demonstrating against an explicitly Jewish state. You know how easily that could flip into anit-semitic hatred.
The other thing I haven’t mentioned is our dog problem. We have one neighbour, on the ground floor, who has a terrace out the back. They have a large dog that I suspect they don’t very often - or ever - walk. They let it out on the terrace where it does its business. That’s their look-out, but the dog also barks constantly when it’s out there, loudly. Sometimes, off and on, for an hour at a time. We think it’s bored and protesting being shunned by its pack.
Then the other night - Friday night - we heard a much smaller dog, clearly inside, howlng pitifully. We’d never heard it before and haven’t since, so I suspect it belonged to someone who was visiting. The people had probably all gone out to the neighbourhood bars to party and left the poor dog alone in a strange apartment. It started whimpering and crying at about 10 o’clock, just about the time people go out here, and it was still howling at 4 o’clock in the morning when I woke up. Karen couldn’t hear it, but I had to sleep with a pillow wrapped around my head.
Later: We walked over towards Placa de Reina (Queen’s Square) a little after 11 in the morning. The St. Vincent procession was supposed to leave the front door of the cathedral and pass through the square starting at 11:30. As we were walking over there, I started wondering if we had our information correct. The centre seemed quieter than it often does on a Sunday. I thought it would be jammed. But then we got to the cathedral square and found a fairly large crowd lining the route the procession would take. We got up fairly close to the cathedral doors and could see mounted horse guards waiting to accompany the procession. I didn’t notice until I looked at the picture later that this one is a young woman, with lipstick and dyed red hair in pigtails.
About a quarter to noon, the doors opened and the congregation came out, followed by a bunch of priests in their vestments. And then St. Vincent appeared. He’s represented by a silver-plated wooden statue of a swooning man carrying a crucifixion cross. It was made by one José Esteve Bonet (1741-1802). They mount it on a catafalque on wheels. We could see St. Vincent swaying above the crowd, glowing in the sun, as it made its way along the procession route. Soldiers with automatic rifles marched beside it - with the two horse guards leading the way.
Once we’d had our jollies watching the procession - and that didn’t take long - the problem became how to get out of the crowded square. It took some struggling through the press and then zigging and zagging along little backstreets to make our way out to where it was less busy. And that was it for our observation of St. Vincent the Martyr Day.
Later still: For my afternoon/evening ramble, I biked over to the north side of the centre and started into the old city near the armouries. As usual, I just meandered aimlessly, occasionally enjoying the streetscapes in this fairly old part of town. There weren’t that many people about and a fair proportion appeared to be tourists.
The photographic pickings were modest. This set of three are of a building in Carmen I’ve always liked. It has a mural that goes around three sides and seems to represent a kind of fantastical river - or maybe the sea. Taggers have been at it in some places.
This one is the Borja Palace, now law courts, and dates from the 15th century. The Borjas were Spanish nobles before some of them moved to Italy and became the famous, or infamous, Borgia popes, generals and murderers. (Some modern historians have questioned whether they did all the bad things their enemies claimed they did.) Apparently you can get in to tour it but by appointment only.
Tuesday, 23 January 2024: Warm weather has returned. It got up to over 20C today and the sun shone. I ran in the morning - a slightly elongated version of the train station route. In shorts.
After lunch-dinner, we rode bikes down to the Turia park system. We rode along busy Carrer de Colon (Columbus St.), dodging pedestrians and electric scooters, and then walked down into the park at the Pont de l'Exposició (Exhibition Bridge). Designed by famous architect and native son Santiago Calatrava - who also created some of the buildings in the City of Arts & Sciences - it’s referred to popularly as La Peineta (the comb), because the arch makes it look a bit like the decorative combs Spanish ladies traditionally wore in their hair.
We didn’t walk far before we came on a reasonably comfortable-looking park bench in the sun. We’d brought our Kobos and sat reading for 45 minutes or so. There was no wind and the sun was hot - although it started to cool off before we got up to leave. We saw people nearby lying on blankets, sunbathing - almost certainly not Spaniards, some of whom we later saw wearing their puffer jackets.
At one point a fellow came along on a bike pulling a kiddie trailer with an elderly Samoyed dog in it. The guy was in shorts and t-shirt and had a huge pack slung over his back. He looked to be in his late 30s, with long dark hair pulled back in a cue and vaguely Latin American features. They stopped at the water fountain across from our bench so dog and man could have a drink. Then they pedalled off. We speculated idly about what his story might be. Karen thought he might be on a gap year, or taking some time mid-career to find himself. I suspect he was just unemployed and homeless - but not letting it grind him down too much. He looked fit and healthy.
We walked up into the city and through some of the same streets I’d haunted the previous afternoon. We were looking for possible restaurants for our Thursday lunch out. We didn’t find any, and ended up walking far too much of the time in heavily touristy areas. We kept going in circles and ending back at the Placa de Reina, a place we avoid at all costs most of the time, because it’s absolute tourist central.
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| Unidentified church near the centre |
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| Moor's head door knocker |
Note: You say Russafa, I say Ruzafa. Let’s call the whole thing…confused.
If you have a smattering of Spanish, you might be a bit puzzled by my spellings of some place and street names here. Pont de l'Exposició? Isn’t that sort of Spench or Franish? Sort of.
Valencia is a confusingly bilingual city. We hear more Spanish - or think we do. But the official first language is Valenciano, which is very similar to Catalan, the language (or dialect as some insist) spoken in Barcelona. So Pont de l'Exposició is Valenciano. Bridge in Spanish is puente, there is no elision of the la in Spanish before the word Exposición, which is also spelled slightly differently. Yes, there are definitely similarities between Valenciano/Catalan and French.
I find myself more and more defaulting to the Valenciano versions of place names. It’s what you see on street signs and even on Google maps. But in some cases, I’ve stuck with Spanish spellings. Ruzafa rather than Russafa, the Valenciano spelling, for example. I’m confused too.
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