Rest(less) Valencia - Spain

A small bar is full of people, so we stand at the front door and wait with beers in hand for a table to get free. The walls have many writings and drawings done by a permanent barker. Similar to the courtyard with Juliet’s balcony in Verona, here are also the names of the beloved ones. With no trace of shame a middle aged woman writes her name and the name of the partner on the wall, with a plus in between and circles them with a heart. Then she sits down and sips her wine. At the longest table, there are almost all the dishes they offer on the menu. Filled champignons with prosciutto and cheese, olives, avocado and nut salad, smoked salmon, various spreads and fresh, toasted, white bread. Our hosts, the Spanish, are used to share things – and not only food, everything (from clothes, apartments, right down to personal stories). They convince us to try the fries on the bone, stacked in a clay pot. Salty meet, surrounded by crunchy fat, is dissolving at the tip of the tongue. When later we find out, that pig tails are so crunchy, we stop chewing the fat off the bones.

The streets are decorated as it were Easter, Christmas and Halloween all together. The colourful and bright decorative writings and fair-like passages with lights give us a feeling we’re in an artificial city made up of movie sets. The houses, behind their beautiful facades, hold nothing but iron construction – there’s no warm home, but just emptiness. The festive spirit is in town already three days before the beginning. The city is full of people, young, old, children, who cry on the last day, when the colourful sculptures disappear in the fires at the end.

The whole neighbourhood has an organized group for fallas, that holds meetings and social events the whole year around, where they collect the means to prepare the sculptures and other activities during the festival. Fallas dates back to the medieval times, then the craftsmen are said to burn the rests of wood after the long winter and celebrate the coming of the sprig. Within five days there are several events, concerts and shows and every morning the marching band wakes up the sleepy people with a song exactly at eight o’clock. In the afternoon you can even hear explosives and firecrackers from several neighbourhoods. The square with the city hall is overcrowded, for exactly at two o’clock the main fallers say from the balcony: “Mister pyrotechnic, you can start!” The masses listen to the tremble and watch the white smoke after the bang. Parents encourage their kids to throw fire-crackers and enjoy themselves and every year this time, the number of arm and hand injures peaks.

On the last day of the festival the huge sculptures are burned. The comical characters of fairy tales and daily life are turned to ashes and the old year, along with winter, give way to the new one – welcomed in by one of the biggest parties in Spain. The talkative taxi driver told us, during the expensive Saturday night drive, that there are almost 3 million people in the city for the festival, only one third are locals. Some shop keepers and pub owners can thus make enough money in four days to ensure a few months living for a four member family.

Local specialities, local weirdoes and local food – that’s the best description of the central market. The smell of dark red strawberries starts following you once you enter. We could not resist, so we bought sweet berries in a plastic cup with wooden spikes. Almost every stand features bags of homemade chips hanging down in see through plastic bags reviling the fried potatoes. Chips are a bit thicker than the one from the store and is seasoned only with sea salt and is so crispy as if it were just taken out of the pan. The market is full of life and the vendors are addressing the passers-by while pressing halves of oranges in their hands showing how juicy they are and offer fried pig skins to taste, or even cut off the long slices of prosciutto. Moving along the stands with spices, nuts, meat and cheese we get to see the fish market and a strong smell is there to tell you where to look even before you can see it. It’s interesting that even shopping malls that have special stands for fish, simply clean the fish with a stream of water from the hose, just like on the market and everything goes into special canals in the ground. In Valencia they eat a lot of sea fruit and like elsewhere in Spain also a lot of pork. The central market is a real feast for the eyes and offers typical ingredients for local specialities. Along with daily food or degustation you can also get a glass or two of red wine and relax from the morning choirs. 

The apartments are cold, as the people near the coast do not have any heating in the older buildings. No wonder all the cafes are full and the squares and beach restaurants. A ten minute drive from the city center along the wide avenues with palm trees and past the biggest aquarium in Europe, you get to see the Mediterranean Sea. The smell of salt, algae and plankton made us as happy as children on the school bus. After a huge ordure in a restaurant at the sea three waiters brought a hot iron pan in front of us, full of yellow rice, soaked in vegetable juice and spices – with meat. Paella is a typical Spanish dish originating from Valencia. Similar to pizza it was first the food of the poor, who put in the rice everything from meat to snails, sea fruit and vegetables – whatever they could find, and fried it over an open fire. Instead of having a siesta, after a too filling meal and an unusual desert – a baked orange pumpkin with chocolate – we take the car and go past the irrigated fields and thick reeves.

The lake Albufera used to be salty, but in 17th century it got soft and is now “sweet.” This was due to being filtered through sand and due to many canals through which the salt water left. It’s next to the coast and the view is blocked by the densely parked cars of people having a Sunday drive. Some are bathing in the sun, others are snacking and again there are those who row away from the coast in a boat, on the water surface so smooth it could have been oil.

Night clubs of Valencia get overcrowded during the weekends. Some clubs sell way to expensive tickets, other have pocket friendly offers including welcome drinks and those with hardly any visitors are free of entrance. The benches in front of clubs are full of people chatting about drinking beer out of cans they’ve bought on the street. Elderly men sell bouquets of flowers all night long, but their real earning comes from beer cans – hidden deep in the pockets. Next to the clubs there are always hand fast food stands. Similar as back home, kebab is the late night fuel for the dancing masses. Bread pockets, filled with vegetables and slices of spiced meat with sauce, to make the party people even thirstier, so the beer sellers zig-zag around like birds of prey. 

The dance floor is sticky from sweet alcoholic drinks. The blue light shows the crowd moving along the rhythms of Testify by Rage Against The Machine, and short flashes show where friends are taking selfies. Next day this will probably be the thing to take their memory back to the club.

The festive Valencia offers a special atmosphere, for you can feel the positive energy in the city, along with joy. The locals are friendly and hospitable, making the exploration of the million soul large city a really unique experience. In Valencia there is never a lack of party, that lasts the whole night long and usually ends with a can of beer on the way home. But you can also relax at the huge lake of Albufera or a café at the seaside. The city centre also has quite oasis that recharge you with energy and make you go out and enjoy the night life some more.