There is a nifty new(ish) station at the end of the Madrid-Valencia rail line built (when there was money) to house the relatively recent AVE extension to the Mediterranean port city. Alighting from the sleek white bullet train, you will find a connector bus to the proper train station (which was built over a hundred years previously and to which all other trains go) only 500 metres away! I am sure there is a perfectly logical technical explanation for this oddity, but I am inclined to believe that the seeming duplication was to provide for a necessary safe-stopping-distance in the event any future potential runaway AVE might be doing the troublesome speed of 300 kilometres an hour. If ever such a thing were to happen, I suspect that it would be too much of a risk for any city centre to bear, not least the centre of Valencia with its cocktail of pricey medieval and Roman architecture and the bloody prospect of overcrowded tapas bars being shot through by several thousand tons of steel doing the sort of lightening pace at which Wall Street bankers turn economies to ruin (if am wrong the other explanation is probably only entertaining for train spotters). (BTW, I use the banker metaphor deliberately as it has a certain, pathetic relevance to Valencia) 
To the novice visitor, Valencia is somewhat of a lost soul and the recent economic meltdown has done nothing to detract from that niggling impression. It is bad enough that its resplendent coastline with over six kilometres of wide sundrenched beach (a rarity in the Med) is separated from the historical core by three kilometres, but the yawning gap is also compounded by a landscape blighted with decaying city apartment blocks and commercial units falling to ruin with dilapidated signposts (“Alquiler” (to rent)) making for an ominous gauntlet. The signs of the explosive and catastrophic property boom are scattered all about. Towering mirrored office blocks (many tenanted by low grade chain hotels) and half completed apartment towers stretching all the way from the east side of the city to the coast stand witness over dusty streets to significant economic and environmental trauma. Half completed roads and abandoned commuter rail lines reflect what happens when greed and planning corruption conjoin just as the financial well runs dry. The palms trees fan the streets in brilliant sunlight. Nothing moves. It is as though the world has been transformed into an Havanna-esque parallel universe vacated as a set for some new Sergio Leone movie; The Good, the Bad and the Downright Incomprehensible.
On the wharf, huge warehouses, hangar’s for the world’s greatest yachts (in another era), stand empty. Had this been the scene of an apocalypse? Did the Day after Tomorrow happen yesterday? Did the Mayan’s prediction for 2012 have a certain specificity to the port of Valencia, in April? Only the fading Prada, Breitling and Hublot signs remain as evidence of the hyper-indulgence of the America’s Cup which launched here in 2007. The odd stripped hull remains among the clattering perspex sheets and invading pigeons. The wind whistles and for a moment you can hear the thumping Mediterranean beats, the raucous partying crowds, the popping champagne, the slamming cash registers. But it is just water lapping on the peer, loosened decking creaking under foot, wooden beams that sway and clank. 
At the beach front, fewer than half the optimistically oversized restaurants are open. It probably is packed in summer. The beach is large, clean, wide, white and empty. Ironically, we have passed through a hell to get to a haven. The marina is empty bar the last remaining flottilla of yachts yet to be impounded by the London Sheriffs (or maybe the Russians own them: who knows, who cares). They rock and bob side to side tethered, adrift. We stop in one of the less than half empty restaurants and order Paella Valenciana. What else? It is poor. We should have known better. So here is a place where Spain excels at undermining itself, as though it needed to, allowing a proliferation of poor quality establishments charge over priced menus for poor quality produce. Quite sadly, they have done what even Los Indignados failed to do: they have anchored themselves permanently on some of Spain’s primest real estate. One can only hope that the optimism which built so many goliath eateries will NOT prevail. We look beyond the sand back toward the city, over the roofs of abandoned cranes, over the walls. The city beckoned.
Just as it seemed there was only the rotting carcasses of dinosaurs to wander through (imagine winning a trip to Jurassic Park after an outbreak of myxomatosis) we happen upon the Arts and Sciences Park suffused with turquoise light under a dusk sky. Here we found not only an abundance of evening strollers but a wealth of startling architecture and feats of engineering that really make the eye pop. Could Logan’s Run have been filmed here? West World? Star Trek? Necks twist and crane to understand, see, scope and investigate what must be one of the Europe’s neatest architectural secrets. Having survived the post apocalyptic landscape of the reckless builder’s Valencia, here we tumble into something by far more visionary, captivating, ethereal, subversive; a thing meant to last, a place meant to say something about Valencia and Valencians. The City that gave the world ‘the bridge builder’, Santiago Calatrava, also has something to say about its love of art, music, science, nature and culture; and it does so in grand style housing centres for the arts and sciences in buildings which themselves are feats of science and works of art. What this says about Valencia is that it is a city which was raided by speculators and prospectors and contractors and bankers and greed and recklessness, but these are not the character traits of the people of this city. If this sounds naive then the city itself, immersed in eons of mediterranean cultures, remains a fitting testament to the true nature of Valencia and its people. 
In every nook and cranny of its labyrinthine streets, the old city speaks about the civility and culture that underpins the place which is synonymous with paella but not so synonymous for the intensely alluring architectural heritage, refined artwork, handsome streetscapes and wonderfully preserved historical legacies. One need only scope the exquisite ceiling of the Silk Market with its tens of individually sculpted representations of traders and noblemen of the early medieval period. Elsewhere, the city is filled with ancient churches, gateways, terraces and monuments, including city ramparts at the remaining gates of the old city walls. At night, the street lamps cast a pale yellow glow about the pink stone walls rendering a timeless mystical quality of old Arab street scapes not unlike parts of central Jerusalem. In a place such as this, it is not all surprising that religiosity and ceremony feature as anchors in a cultural calendar. What is surprising is that these ceremonies are still of an intensity and authenticity that harp back to the frenzied send-offs that must have heralded the departure of crusaders to the east; thrilling and chilling in equal measure.
Their eyes dart left and right. Though it is Holy Thursday, it is not Christ but Satan who comes to mind at the sight of the rtiualistic spectacle: hooded types the likes of which I have only seen in Rosemary's Baby, Stigmata, or some other film of sacrificial nastiness, perhaps even more lately in one of the Harry Potter movies. One of the “penetants” spins. His sleek cloak twirls after him as though he were a fleeing vampire lifting on the breeze, He disappears behind the church. It is mid evening about eight o’clock. The blazing sun that earlier set fire to the clouds above our heads is sinking and the crimson light is fading to lilac and quickly then to grey. A full moon dances behind the scattering clouds. The spire of the church is drenched in a silver light. The air is thick with the scent of frankincense; the smell of the dead. In the courtyard, families are gathering.
Are the chevaliers leaving? Is there a war? Do gallions await at the port? The staffs hit the black street with the deliberacy of anxious spears. Feet pound in unison. The passing out parade of a battalion of storm troopers could hardly be more startling if such a thing were real. On and on on it goes, like the a prepared invasion. Not since I first saw Zulu Dawn and my own upper lip felt as wet as Michael Caine’s have I felt so exhilarated and yet unnerved. For here, unfolding before my eyes is not just some traditional homage to the fate of Christ some two thousand years ago. Here is the the seedling of Christian fanaticism which purged Spain of the Moors and Islam. Here is the oppositional statement of Christian victory on the Iberian Peninsula played over and over year in and year out. Is it benign religious practice and remembrance of is it a reminder of victory, feverish determination?
It is hard to come away from such an experience and not reflect at how determinative culture especially religious culture is; how wondrous but potentially intractable; how uplifting, ecstatic and unifying it can be but also how damning, cruel and divisive. The parade marches into the night, into the early hours, drums pounding.
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Valencia is a place far removed from the simple delights of saffron, rice, mussels, chicken, beans and rabbit. It is a city of a people unashamedly replete with all the paradoxes of human nature; driven by desire to be creative, expressive, joyous, full of hope, endeavour and survival and yet surrounded by and infused as much with the injuries of its own follies and obsessions as the expressions of its own enlightenment. For my money, any city that awakens the senses to the complexity of the human condition, is a city not to be missed.
Here are a just few reasons to visit Valentia;
Valencia Aquarium; Ok I do not agree with the whole dolphin thing, but apart from that this is a really quite magnificent.
Here are a just few reasons to visit Valentia;
Valencia Aquarium; Ok I do not agree with the whole dolphin thing, but apart from that this is a really quite magnificent.
Valencia market (in the old town); It is fairly traditional but also bloody huge. Some lovely tile work under the domes.
Sagradi; It may be a chain serving Basque style pintxos, but its clean, fresh and the food is totally yummmmieeee
Barrios; check out the traditional barrios between the city and the coast, which shelter some of Valencia’s most charming neighbourhoods and architecture with echoes of cities like Montevideo and Lisbon. Great food to be had too!
The Beach; One of Valencia’s best assets is a 20 minutes bus ride from the city centre.
The Old Silk Market; Take the guided tour for 3€ to get a fuller appreciation of this heritage site.
Ice Cream; How does smoked salmon take your fancy? If that sounds too fishy, then you might like the violet or marietta biscuit flavours of authentic creamy style italian ice cream at
Easter parades; Seville is gone commercial and too hectic. See the real macoy in Valencia and hide amongst a predominantly local spectating crowd.
Opera; Valencia is up there with the top Opera destinations in the world regularly hosting leading performers, performances and conductors in several world class venues. What could be better than Opera followed by feed of Paella?
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