The sun goes in, the sun comes out

 Sunday, 28 January 2024: The weather has turned. It only got up to 14C today and clouded over in the afternoon. It’s forecast to go to 16 tomorrow but still cloudy. The next two weeks mostly - mostly -  look pretty decent.

On cleaning day this week, Wednesday, we’re tentatively planning a day trip to a little place called Buñol, to the west of the city, about a 70-minute commuter train journey. It has a castle and some nature walks. Frustrated with the inadequacies of the Renfe (state railway monopoly) website, I went out in the morning and rode over to Estacio de Nord to see what I could glean.  The ride over there was bracingly cool.

The Renfe website’s trip planner applet had said there were no trains available to this place, but I found other pages that clearly showed the route of Cercanía Linea 3 (commuter line 3) going from Nord to Buñol. ‘Que the f__k!?’ - as someone (not saying who) might say in Spanglish. 

The station is under renovation so it’s a mess. But the first board I looked at showed a train arriving from Buñol and another leaving shortly afterwards. I then approached a sullen-looking employee in the station’s temporary “customer service” office. He said he spoke a little English but then treated me as if I was an idiot when he couldn’t understand my fairly simple question: ‘Where do you buy tickets for the commuter trains?’ When I said it in Spanish, he understood but I was still an idiot. He waved contemptuously towards the ticket wickets - which I had thought were only for longer-distance routes. Well, now I know.

It warmed up briefly in the middle of the day and we sat outside in the sun for a while.

From our balcony

From our balcony

    But when we went out in the afternoon, planning to ride down to the City of Arts & Sciences, I found I’d seriously under-dressed for the weather. The temperature had dropped a degree or two, clouds had rolled in, and a little breeze came up that cut through my three layers of wool and cotton. I called off the ride, we ditched the bikes and just walked briefly around the neighbourhood.

We filled in some of the rest of the afternoon with Game 2 in our Winter Scrabble Season. We’re now tied, 1-1, but both games were decided by minuscule margins. We’ve both become very defensive players.

Monday,  29 January 2024: High, heavy overcast, 10C. A lazy run in the morning - down Regne de Valencia to the ring road, over to the Gran Via and back up to Ruzafa: less than 4K. I’ll have to modify that route to bump up the distance.

After lunch, we dressed more warmly than we had the day before and rode bikes down to the City of Arts & Sciences. The previous afternoon and evening I’d started experimenting again with blending images in Photoshop to create abstracts. Perhaps an indication that I’m already getting bored with the other photographic subject matter on offer. In any case, I wanted to get more raw material for blended images, specifically some detail shots of the wild architecture at the City. So off we went. 

Blend of two images

Blend of two images

Biking was fine, despite the cooler, cloudy weather. Karen’s plan was to sit on a bench and read while I wandered around taking photos. I worried she might be chilly. And she was. A bit of a breeze had sprung up and she could feel it on her back where she sat in a fairly open area near the Palau de les Arts. I spent 30 minutes or so taking pictures, then we wandered around the Science Museum and over by Caixa Forum - and eventually made our way to the Linea 10 tube stop across from the Aquarium. We got off at the Ruzafa stop this time and walked home through the neighbourhood. Here are a few of the pictures I took - before I started monkeying with them.

Science Museum

Palau de les Arts

Murals under Montolivet Bridge near Palau de les Arts

Tuesday, 30 January 2024: Another cool, cloudy day. I did a fast walk in the morning - the same route I’d run the day before. It’s a more appropriate distance for the walk. We spent most of the rest of the day indoors, other than a couple of forays to grocery shop, once to Mercadona (just me), once across the street to Consum (with Karen). 

     I worked on my image blends much of the day. Here are some of the crazy results.

In the evening, I had a concert, one of the free University of Valencia recitals. This one was at a different university building in the old city than the one I’d gone to a couple of times last year, but it was easy to find. I rode over. Once again, I failed to follow the correct procedure for securing a seat. When they asked for my name to cross it off their list of registered ticket-holders, I had to say I hadn't signed up. “Espere,” she said and indicated a place beside her. “Wait.” When all the legitimate ticket-holders clustered in the courtyard above the concert venue had been counted, it was clear they had extra capacity and I and a few others were allowed to go down the stairs and claim a seat. Once again, I had to sit at the back.

The soloist was a mandolinist named Jordi Sanz. The name sounds Catalonian - or Valencian - but he did his training in Murcia, a province well south of here, and a long way from Barcelona. Some of the musicians I saw last year in this series were still training or had only recently finished. This guy already has a small international performing career underway and also teaches. He was accompanied by a pianist, Maria Abad, whose resume was even more impressive. She was an artist-in-residence at St. Thomas University in PEI at one point. 

The music was all by a Spanish composer, Felix de Santos (1874-1946). He’s listed in the Spanish Wikipedia as a mandolinist and teacher. Evidently, he also composed for his instrument and is still revered by other mandolinists. The performances were very virtuosic, the music all attractive. Definitely worth hearing. The room was interesting too, it’s called the Room of Murals. There was an art exhibit on the walls - of large-scale photographs taken, it looked like, in North Africa. Maybe that’s why it’s called the Room of Murals. But there was also an exposed stone wall behind the performers. which I’m assuming is of some archaeological importance. I’ll have to go back some time when there isn’t a concert on and explore.

It was after 8:30 by the time I got home.

Wednesday, 31 January 2024: Cleaning day. We went to Buñol by train to look at the castle - and get out of Adriana’s hair. 

Purchasing train tickets was no problem. As I had learned on my earlier reconnaissance trip, the cercanía routes are considered “medium distance” so I lined up at that set of wickets in the entrance hall. I was waited on by a polite and friendly young-ish woman - as opposed to the usual grumpy middle-aged man - and understood most of what she said to me in Spanish. The train was already on the platform. By the time it left a few minutes late at 10:30, it was still mostly empty. How do they afford to run these routes? I said it was a 70-minute ride, and it can be, but this was a fast train and got us there in just over an hour.

We were struck right away by how dead the town seemed. It has apparently been a place that well-off Valencians come to in the summer to escape the heat, although at this time of year, the climate appears to be about the same as in the city - cloudy and cool on this day. All the houses seemed to be shuttered. Many businesses were closed. We followed signs for the castle, about a 20-minute walk away, and found it without too much trouble. It’s open all year and entry is free. There’s even a free audio guide you can download to your phone. We found it a bit dry, with far too much detail about stuff we weren’t particularly interested in.

Apparently it's a thing with the people living in houses in the castle to make these mask-cum-plant pots from recycled water or bleach jugs.

       There have been fortifications here - near the old border between the kingdoms of Valencia and Castille, and the camino real, the royal road - since the 11th century, but most of what remains today dates from the 15th, and has been heavily built over and then restored in the 20th. Its most interesting feature is that at one point in the castle’s history when it was all but abandoned - in the 19th century, I think - ordinary people moved into it and built homes in its precincts. They’re still there and lived in today, lining the main plaza between two of the surviving towers, snuggled up against the castle walls. 

      We gave up on the audio guide fairly quickly and just enjoyed clambering over the battlements and taking pictures (me) of the views out over the old city’s snarrow, winding, up-and-down streets and tile roofs. We probably spent 45 minutes at the castle, maybe an hour. Then wandered out in what seemed the logical direction given what we could see of the town from the castle towers. Next on our itinerary was lunch. 

Of course, we got hopelessly lost, and weren’t anywhere near the areas where we might find a restaurant. Eventually, we resorted to Google Maps and found our way to the town’s commercial centre. The restaurants were not appealing, or they were closed. We couldn’t get over how shut-down the whole town seemed to be. We wondered if it might be a half-day closing day - although that wouldn’t explain why shops were shuttered in the morning when we first arrived. In the end, we decided to just head back to Valencia and eat at home.

Spotted on the walk to Buñol train station

It was a long-ish - 30 minute - and fairly boring walk back to the train station. We waited for about 15 minutes for the next rain and were back home before 4 - where I rustled us up a quick and simple meal that we agreed was probably better than anything we would have got at a restaurant in Buñol.

Thursday, 1 February 2024: Hooray! The sun is back. It’s been a grey and cool few days here. Well, cool by Valencia standards.

I ran in the morning, a slightly truncated City of Arts & Sciences route that I extemporised in order to avoid waiting for a traffic light. I turned on to Carrer de l'Escultor Josep Capuz (named for a not terribly illustrious local sculptor) and then ended up somehow at Avenue of the Silver, so ran up it towards home.  

Today was going-out-for-lunch day in Valencia. And we did. I suggested we go back to a Japanese place we’d liked last year, Sake Restaurante in Eixample. I’d forgotten it was such good value. The menu del dia lunch is five courses with one drink for €10.95. I had miso soup to start, Vietnamese spring rolls for seconds. Karen had cucumber salad for starters and some other kind of spring roll for seconds. We both had fried rice with chicken and veal in plum sauce for third and fourth. One catch: no wine, only tiny bottles of beer or soft drinks. I had a beer, Karen a coke. We forgot that dessert was included and didn’t understand when they asked if we wanted it, and said no. Duh! It was still about as good value as you could find. A total of €21.90 or about CDN$33.

After lunch we walked down to the Turia and sat in the sun on one of the benches in the park below the Bridge of the Sea. We stayed for about an hour and then walked home along Ciril Amaros St. And that was pretty much the day.