Under grey skies our enthusiasm to explore another Via Verde at Alcoi diminished. We pushed on, but realised that we had probably left it too late to secure a place at the busy Valencia Camper stop.
We stopped in Castalla to shop at Mercadona then drove around the corner to the municipal camper stop to have lunch. Gill clicked around on search for sites to find somewhere to stay between Alcoi and Valencia. We settled upon the area autocaravanas at Benissuera, though a bit off the beaten track the roads to it looked ok. They were, apart from the last 200m down a single track lane with high walls on each side. The local municipality had made a real effort to make the village autocaravanas comfortable and well designed.
We expected it to be virtually empty given the location but there were about eight other vans in the place. It does emphasize the point I keep making, winter sun in Spain by motorhome is now a mass participation activity amongst Northern Europe's recently retired.
Given the situation here we decided to book the Valencia Camper Park on-line. It was a short drive next day to Betera just north of the city. However once again we needed to a Mercadona to buy the things we forgot yesterday. We headed to the store at Alberic. The car park was deserted. Not for the first time we were bamboozled by a Spanish saint's day! This is not surprising given that after a month or more wandering about knowing which day of the week it is feels like a minor achievement and only Google knows the actual date. Ever the witless travellers' faithful Sancho, Gill's phone duly informed her it was St. Joseph's day, which doubles up in Spain as Fathers' Day and is a national public holiday. This caught us out last year too, but we never learn.
We arrived in Valencia Camper Park in mid-afternoon. Pre-booking had been a smart move, the place was packed. They have a good system here, you can pre-book on-line but they keep 15% of the pitches for people turning up on spec. The reason why the place was full became apparent as darkness fell. Suddenly it sounded as if a small war had broken out, the van shook slightly at each massive explosion, the sky it-up towards the city centre and acrid smoke drifted across the dull burnt orange sky.
We had inadvertently arrived on the final day of Valencia's famed Fallas festival. Events take place throughout the first three weeks of March but the festival culminates with five days of 'Mascletà' - neighbourhood firework displays - each one more intense and louder than the next. Giant papermaché figures are built around the city, fantastical or satirical creations up to 15 metres high.
At midnight on St. Joseph's day one by one they are set alight. The event is world famous, like the Rio carnival, and hotels are booked up months in advance. We just happened to turn up accidentally and failed to witness any of it other than the final big bang of a nearby Mascletà.
We headed into the city the next day expecting it to look like a war zone. It was pristine. An army of municipal workers must toil through the night to clean up
after the fire festival.
It's Spain, you wouldn't expect otherwise, they don't leave litter, even in remote parking places there is always a bin and it's never full to overflowing.
We headed to the Central Market as usual. While we were at the café there waiting for our tapas to arrive I checked back on the blog to see when we first discovered the place. November 2014!
Almost a decade ago, it's all a bit sobering the way time slips by.
Yesterday's Mercadona failure meant we needed to do a bit of shopping. The Central Market really does stock the best quality fresh ingredients that you are likely to find anywhere.
It's a kind of miracle of abundance, a place you exit feeling more positive about humanity than when you entered, and given the human condition right now that seems verging on the miraculous.
Afterwards we decided to walk through the old city to the Turia park. Like many Spanish places with Arabic roots it's very easy to become very disorientated in the warren of narrow alleyways. It sent Google maps haywire and we ended up accidentally in a small square next to the cathedral not next to the Turia park as planned.
The square was thronged, hundreds of people gathered around an enormous figure of St Mary - Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados. 'Our Lady of the Forsaken' is Valencia's patron saint and is venerated by laying bouquets of flowers at her feet. The side of the cathedral seemed to have been covered in them too just to make sure 'Our Lady' felt super venerated. Somehow Gill and I became separated in the crowd. I phoned her to find out where she was, about 20m away as it turned out.
Somehow we did manage to find the Turia park and wandered back towards the metro, exactly in fact as we did last year.
Back at the van Gill stared at her phone and the Valencia street map determined to find something different to do tomorrow. Valencia Camper Stop is one station short of where metro line 1 terminates north of the city at Betera. We decided to go beyond the city centre and explore the Valencian littoral - at the end of line 4.
The journey took a little less than an hour and involved two trams. Beyond the monuments of the city centre Valencia is a city of vibrant neighborhoods and closely packed mid-rise apartment blocks. It doesn't feel as if there is much in the way of greenery.
Though the wide promenade behind the even wider beach is a little scruffy and windswept I suspect it's much appreciated as a welcome open space.
The area is next to the container port and has quite a few old style warehouses from the mid twentieth century and crumbling monuments At the moment the locality is hovering uncertainly between the grungy and the hipsterish.
Gill had spotted a well reviewed local café in the area - La Cabanyita. It was down a side street at the rear of the promenade in an area of half abandoned looking concrete industrial buildings. There was no one about, we wondered if it would be open even though Google maps said it was.
It's rare that your expectations are blown away, that you happen on somewhere wonderful out of the blue. This was one such moment.
La Cabanyita had a bit of a Hackney vibe, somewhere that Sarah and Rob might have taken us where we find ourselves the oldest couple in the place by a couple of decades.
The woman running the café was relaxed, friendly and attentive. It's a bit tricky to nail exactly how the place had been styled, the best I can come up with is - upscale shabby chic, but I realise that is seemingly a contradiction in terms.
Whoever had selected the music had put some thought into the playlist. Whenever Sarah and Rob visit us we wake up to the internet DJ Charlie Bones' morning show. An interviewer once described his style as 'a signature mix of genre-spanning deep cuts and rare grooves with a dreamy, dance-inflected edge'. Something similar might have been said about the soundtrack to our lunch.
There was nothing particularly unusual or fancy about the menu. As usual we opted to share some small plates. First up, a tapas classic reimagined. The patatas bravas werr made partly with sweet potato and partly with humble spuds accompanied by a garlicky sauce as well as the usual spicy one.
This came with the deconstructed mushroom ravioli we ordered.
However what came next was the star turn, simple but utterly delicious croquettes -
This prompted Gill to award the place her ultimate accolade observing, "Whoever made this knows how to cook."
To turn something ordinary into a memorable experience takes skill, practice, a good palate and a willingness to keep experimenting until the dish has been perfected. We finished off with a cortado and tiramisu. The latter was a good effort rather than stunning - but then we are in Spain; to make a truly stunning tiramisu you probably have to be Italian and have been shown how to do it by Nonna.
So, the question we turned to as we wandered back to the metro stop, where did 'La Cabanyita' sit in our panoply of simply delicious and inexpensive places to eat? Was it up there with explosive burrata puccia from the backstreets of Gallipoli, the 'Rita Hayworth' croque in Sete, the spanakopita munched on the quayside of Finikounda, a dorada grilled on the bbq at La Sereia in Sagres, the lemon polenta cake we had at a cafe at Felixstowe Ferry, or the Marammeni al ragu we were served in a bottega in Burchio in the Arno Valley? All these places had served us stunningly delicious food in ordinary looking places. We agreed that maybe La Cabanyita was up there, though the pasta dish in Burchio may have trumped them all.
The metro back to the camper stop took half the time as the outward one because we arrived at the stop moments before the tram departed and the same thing happened when we had to change lines in the city centre. Though the tram was busy - late afternoon full of students heading back from lectures from the two universities we passed - this meant we were guaranteed a seat. Spanish young people are meticulous about offering older people their seat. When it first happened about eight years ago I was a bit taken back - do I look that old! Now I am just thankful!
So, a good final day in Valencia. Note to self always do different stuff especially when you are revisiting somewhere you are familiar with. Though it would be tricky to return to Valencia and not have lunch at the Central Market Bar, for us I think it represents some sort of archetypal civilised place of mundane beauty, where the good life feels easily attainable. The same could be said about the city itself. It celebrates it's illustrious past by living in the here and now. It feels optimistic in a way you rarely sense back home.
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