Day 71: Valencia Day 3

November 5, 2023

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The wind had mostly died by this morning, and a fire that we had seen from our tenth floor window last night was gone. So we gave ourselves a green light for a day of Valencia activities.

Our plan for today was to ride the full length of the Turia park, reaching the river, in the north, and the port, in the south. We had hatched this idea from home, seeing the lovely long and bike friendly park running through the city. Since our hotel is 2/3 of the way up to the river, we headed that way first, then turned around and cycled the full length back toward the port.

There are bike paths of various types within the park, with most being separate from the walkers. The part in this shot happens to be shared.

Heading west and away from downtown, there is this one last modern building.

I will photograph almost all swans, even these giant ones!

As we progressed to the western end of the park, the trail became smaller and rougher, and we began to feel a bit like we had returned to the countryside. We had really wanted to reach the Turia river itself, and we came awfully close. Some big roads out there prevented us from actually seeing the water.

We turned around and cycled back east and south, circling the old town area and heading for the City of Arts and Sciences. The park is a very pleasant green space, and we often could hear birds in the trees. Sometimes these were what we would call parrots, like the guy below.

When we passed beneath the Trinity Bridge we again spotted the statue of what we took to be a pope. We stopped and scampered up there, but the two statues on the bridge had no identification. Later research turned up this: "the Baroque statues of San Luís Beltrán and Santo Tomas de Villanueva, both by the Italian sculptor Ponzanelli. Originally, two saints from Alcira –Bernardo and Maria de Gracia, both converted Moors– stood here, but these fell victim to the Guerras Carlistas wars."

(The "Carlist" wars, who knew, ran from 1833 to 1876 and were struggles over claims to the throne. There were three distinct "wars" in the period, and the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War also involved "Carlists". Way too much info for us!).

Neither of these turned out to be popes.

The park is obviously a tremendous asset for the city, and the public was out in force today enjoying it. Because of the separate bike lanes, there was little conflict with walkers or runners. However there were the usual bicycle speeders, either coming at us or coming from behind, and to these we now have to add the people on those ubiquitous electric skate boards.

There were individual runners and some small groups too.

When we arrived the Arts and Sciences, we found a certain number of people enjoying the grounds, and some going into the buildings, but as mentioned before, it is not totally a people place.

We had talked about continuing the little bit more down to the harbour, but our glance at the map did not show a clear route, shirted t the next phase of our plan. This was to circle the town in the south, and to land up at the storage facility for the bikes. We had already done this the other day, so we knew it would not be difficult. But it was remarkable to see again that this whole random excursion around the town was going to be done on protected bike lanes. This was not be our design, but simple because these bike lanes are everywhere!

Our circle to the south of town was pretty far out, and you can see this extensive construction or redevelopment activity.

We arrived handily at the storage facility, thanks in part to Dodie's good navigation work. As we already knew it would be, the storage locker was the ideal size for the bikes plus two panniers with stuff that we do not need to bring home.

We closed the doors on our bikes, with feelings of sadness - for them who will spend months in the dark, and for ourselves who are not at all ready to leave Europe or Spain. Thinking of the Crusaders of the Lost Ark, we looked down the long row of storage lockers and fervently hoped to be back and to find our poor bikes.

As it happens, our storage locker is a half block from the Metro, and our hotel is one block from the Metro, making storing the bikes and coming away dead easy.

The lady in red gave the old cyclist a seat.

We popped out of the metro between our hotel and Decathlon. We put this photo in in case we forget for next time!

Decathlon had some interesting options for us in cycling windbreakers and rain jackets, but in the end we stuck with our old stuff.

The fun is not over for us, because tomorrow we will hop an excursion to Cuevas de San Jose, which are caves in an underground river, back up the coast beyond Sagunto. Despite this, we are thinking of one trip with grandson Avi at the end of which we pictured him crying on the curb. When asked about the problem he replied "Guys, I'm not done having fun yet!"

Today's ride: 23 km (14 miles)
Total: 3,450 km (2,142 miles)

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Jacquie GaudetI wouldn’t want to come home now either. November is the worst month weather-wise in BC.

Early in my working life, I went to Mexico for a two-week vacation in November. A fellow I chatted with suggested I should “call in healthy” and not go back.
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6 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Jacquie GaudetSo true about November being an awful month weather wise. Ah well, in 3 months we can return.
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6 months ago