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Bookmark & shareA Top Day in Valencia City
It's Sunday, earlyish, and for me the loveliest moment of the week. Most Valencianos are still in bed, many having turned in only a little before dawn. I stroll across what's normally a densely trafficked boulevard, drop down to the old riverbed and jog upstream past weekend footballers limbering up, under Santiago Calatrava's stylishly curved bridge, beside formally landscaped gardens and more tousled areas. Before me looms the giant carapace of the Palau de les Arts, the latest and most gargantuan of the futuristic constructions within the City of Arts & Sciences. I run as far as its Oceanogràfic, Europe's largest aquarium, wondering if my favourites, the darting fairy penguins, are up and about yet. I do an about-turn, home and shower, then it's time for coffee, something sticky and the newspaper. I like a good view so I sit at a café terrace in Plaza de la Virgen, where the fountain spurts, dousing the magnificent representation of the River Turia, reclining like a Greek god. Museums and monuments are free on Sunday so I walk through the Barrio del Carmen - my favourite area for mooching, eating and late-night carousing - as far as the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM) to take in a temporary exhibition that's about to come off. Lunch back home, then a restorative siesta (and let's demolish a stereotype: my indulgence isn't typical; very few Valencianos I know take a power nap, even in summer). One thing I do share with them, though, is a minor addiction to horchata , a sweet local drink made from pounded tiger nuts, so it's a short café stop to down a cold, refreshing glassful. I rest up until about , then meet friends in a bar on busy Calle Caballeros. A quick confab and we're off on tonight's route around the barrio: a tapa (small portion) of boquerones (anchovies in vinegar) here, a beer there, a ración (bigger than a tapa; I'm getting peckish) of chipirones (baby squid) in a third bar, and so on until sleepiness and the thought of Monday morning drive me home.
Author: Miles Roddis
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