A stroll through warm coziness
By the way, when I flew in at night, it was 24🌡️C! And that's at the end of October! During the day it's totally warm, everyone's in shorts and tees. This is, of course, the main plus of these parts, but it's also a minus. In the summer it can hit forty, and at night often thirty. And in the winter it's around ten degrees, but it also gets close to zero. At the same time, there's usually no central heating. People lug gas cylinders up to their floor.
Because it's apparently hot, and the danger of dehydration is real, you regularly come across drinking fountains. Right on the street, in the parks. Convenient. The water, unfortunately, tastes absolutely awful. It smacks of bleach roughly like in Riga, and in some places even worse. Again, because there's very little rain, the vegetation outside the city is dry. But inside the settlements it's quite nice – they take care of the parks. Also, if someone pees, a human or a dog, it's going to smell long and hard. Not like back home, until the next little rain. As a result, the more cultured locals walk around with shampoo and spray it after their dog. Naturally, the city also washes the pavements, otherwise it would be a total disaster.
The next morning I didn't rush straight into the fray, but just unpacked my bike. During the day, however, we took a leisurely stroll into the city to see what's what. We walked along that very riverbed of the Turia, where everything is organized quite conveniently. Along the edges are bike/pedestrian paths, further in are paths for runners, benches. Periodically there are stadiums and sports grounds, playgrounds. In many places you can go up, to the city level, both on wheeled transport and on foot. If you need to cross the riverbed, there are bridges, they are quite common. In at least one place there's an entrance to the metro.
We also popped into the old town. The buildings there are quite beautiful, and there's a gorgeous fountain with statues. Plus, the benches are painted in rainbow colors to scare off the residents of Latvia. It doesn't entirely help – for the sake of the climate and a comfortable urban environment, many are willing to endure the rampant Gayropeanness. Take, for example, the tradition of painting graffiti on the shutters used to close up shops for the night. And this isn't vandalism, it's commissioned! A kids' store will have colorful toys depicted on it, an auto parts store – zooming cars. Even on a hair salon you can see stylish women's heads. In this city, you immediately feel that warm coziness. It's a place where you want to live.
Architecture
Graffiti
May you dream of space
When we reached the 🚂 Nord railway station, I saw the Art Nouveau building and was truly impressed. In Riga, this is called Jugendstil. In case anyone forgot, Art Nouveau is an architectural style characterized by simplified forms and color palette. The building is pretty, I'll show you a photo (author Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0).
There are two railway stations in Valencia, but they are located next to each other – Nord for local trains, and Joaquín Sorolla – for long-distance ones. By the way, Sorolla is a famous Spanish impressionist, originally from Valencia. I'll show you one painting of his that I liked. If you liked it, I recommend a lecture about him, it's good. Interestingly, in 2005 the symphonic metal band Within Temptation gave a one-off performance in the station building, which I've actually listened to, and it's in my 📼 collection.
In the station area, there's also a Chinatown, where there are a few Chinese restos, shops, and even a whole supermarket. We couldn't help but drop in, it's interesting after all. The Chinese didn't disappoint – there I found that very famous Intergalactic Coke with the taste of space, which was released as a limited edition. I haven't seen it anywhere else. The story with this Coke is like this. There's a tall tale that it contains the flavoring that makes up entire nebulas the size of the solar system. In principle, it's not that hard to imagine – there's a lot of alcohol in space, and from there to other simple hydrocarbons is a short step. True, if you look at the official materials, there are no such bold claims there. Just marketing blah-blah about the unearthly taste of stargazing 🌠 and all that. Personally, I liked this Coke (the zero version), even more than regular zero. But probably less than cherry zero, which you can find in Spain, but not back home. There was another exotic Coke in the China-market – Dreamworld, marshmallow flavored, but I have nothing to say about that one. But the space one, by the way, slightly reminds me of Riga Black Balsam with blackcurrant. I wouldn't have been able to articulate it myself if I hadn't seen what the reviewers write. When that happens, I envy people capable of noticing subtleties – that's hard for me.
I'm writing so much about Coke because it's a hobby of mine. I try zero colas from different brands and of different kinds whenever I come across them. In Spain, the clones of the drink didn't impress me, unlike in Switzerland, where I fell in love with the tangerine Happy Cola from the Coop chain.
A paradise for retirees?
Inside Valencia live about 800k people, and with the suburbs – 1.5m. The city is quite large, and continues to grow. They are building anthill-like twenty-story blocks, unfortunately, nothing 💡. Good thing at least there are parks nearby, and not parking lots – they try to make those underground. Apartments are usually very large, thankfully you don't have to pay for heating. 80+ square meters is the norm, often over a hundred. They cost from 30k (small ones, in old buildings and not the best neighborhoods, need renovation), 100k+ (decent options with a larger area, sometimes an elevator and a trendier neighborhood), 150k+ (new builds, elevator, AC, near the sea). For 300k+ you can get a huge penthouse or a small house.
The city is also crisscrossed by a network of bike lanes, and the boulevards often have huge tiled sidewalks. Obviously, it's not like that everywhere, but you can ride your bike very, very far. Just recently I rode my bike out of town. Even though I got confused, and it wasn't easy, I still made it out. In some places, the bike lane is just a name, it runs along a busy highway. But often it's separated at least by bollards, which is safe and comfortable. Bike lanes usually have pedestrian crossings, but pedestrians often let cyclists pass. They understand that it's harder to do a start/stop on a bike. Drivers also let you pass, and very politely – even where there's a 🛑 sign for the bike. True, there are also many 🚦 for bikes, and there you kindly have to obey. Although if there are no 🚗, very, very many people break the rules. Friends say that in Spain there is a wonderful rule – when overtaking a cyclist, you have to reduce your speed to their speed. A quick search clarifies that Spain has many sensible rules to help cyclists on the road.
Actually, when passing, you have to reduce your speed by 20 km from the current limit (so in the city it's 50-20=30 km/h). Furthermore – when a car passes a bike, it must keep a distance of 2m. 🚴 always has priority in disputed situations and on equal-priority 🛣. You can ride two abreast, if it doesn't bother other road users (this rule is absolutely 🔥!). On a roundabout, a group of cyclists is considered as one vehicle for priority rules.
Riding on the sidewalk is generally forbidden, unless it's explicitly allowed by a sign. In my experience, if you ride quietly, and there's no bike lane nearby, the police ignore you.
Food pics on Instagram
Pilaf and Coca-Cola
After an intense walk through the old town, we, understandably, got hungry. Restaurants in Spain operate trickily. Some with a siesta, that is, only in the morning and evening. Some only open for lunch. Tapas bars (meaning where people booze in a company and snack on little sandwiches) only in the evening. And a good fish resto is entirely by reservation only.
In the end, we went into an Indian restaurant called "Bharat" with a good rating and my friend's recommendation. I ordered the vegetarian Biryani dish there, which is something like pilaf, only with vegetables, ghee, and a ton of spices. The Biryani was so delicious that I practically experienced a gastronomic orgasm. I haven't eaten so pleasantly in a long time. I don't know if it was the spices, the sauce, or the right amount of spiciness, but it was incredibly wonderful. I asked for a latte with the dish, but the waiter joked something about "Indian coffee," and eventually brought tea with milk. Oh well, when in India, do as the Indians do.
It cost me 13.50€, which is very reasonable. The dish was huge, I got full, and in any Italy or France, such a dish + coffee would cost a twenty at least.
Having had lunch, we dropped by the royal park (garden?), where there's a cage with a bunch of parrots. These birds already sit on the palm trees here like crazy, but in the cage there are many different ones at once, and you can even feed them. There's also a natural history museum standing nearby, but people usually use it as a nice public restroom. An unenviable fate, but what can you do.
Having gawked at the parrots, we finally headed home. In Spain, the pedestrian figure on traffic lights is sometimes female, or at least wearing a skirt. This distinction is nowadays becoming significant, especially since the country has always supported the rights of LGBT-and-the-rest-of-the-alphabet. For example, same-sex marriages were legalized here in 2004. Spain has ancient traditions of same-sex relationships, and it's no surprise that 88% of Spaniards, according to polls, have a good attitude towards the LGBT. That's one of the highest numbers in the world. Interestingly, emigrants from Latvia and Russia often grind their teeth over this, especially when they see various Prides or "inappropriately" dressed citizens, but they still flock here in droves. They just love the good weather and the relaxing atmosphere too much. They want to both have their cake and eat it too. I wish them luck with that!
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