O Valencia!

After a long hiatus, I am reviving this blog to document Mal and Di’s next adventure – an almost 3 month sojourn in Spain and Portugal. We’re not getting any younger and we are doing this while we can- Mother nature has been reasonably kind to us; Father time on the other hand…

So we start off in Valencia. Our friend Antonio Ortuno, a chef and artist whom we met In New York is hosting us on our first leg. A native of Spain and a Valenciano of long standing, he lives in El Carmen, the oldest (and hippest) part of the old city. If you have ever been to El Barrio Gotic in Barcelona, you will recognize El Carmen – a mixture of Moorish and Medieval Christian architecture.

The streets are narrow and paved with stone. There is barely room for cars to traverse, and yet pedestrians cyclists, scooters, and automobiles negotiate the glorified alleyways together.

Like the rest of Spain, the city only comes alive after 10 am, but then it goes on into the wee hours of the morning. You have to get used to having lunch at 2 and dinner after 9. When the restaurants close, then the bars open and when the bars close, then the clubs start.

There is a festival called Fallas that happens every year around the middle of March and it is a 5 day bacchanal that locals flee as tourists descend for the madness of a never ending party – like New Orleans Mardi Gras and Burning Man combined. (Not my picture below – I’m here in November)

There’s art. There’s culture. There’s history. And above all there’s food. More on this later.

After just 5 hours, I was sold. I could seriously live here. But there’s lots more to see and explore, and in few days, we have our first Spanish classes.