Wednesday 5 June 2013

We started the day with a visit to a local bakery which sold excellent “rustic” bread rolls which were covered in seeds. We then picked up our bicycles and a map of the parklands. We rode to one extremity of the “river” and had a picnic lunch in a quiet spot next to a water feature. Then we rode to other extremity to view some modern architecture. This consisted of a series of imposing buildings that house museums and an aquarium. They were well worth seeing, but the scale of modernist architecture stands in stark contrast to the scale of buildings in the older parts of the Spanish cities that we have been staying in. On the modernist scale, the human form is negligible. On the pre-modern scale, dimensions and relations are determined by the human form.

After we returned the bikes we caught a bus to the beach in search of a restaurant recommended by a woman in the bike shop. We emerged from the poorer barrios that verge onto the seaside precinct onto a strip of dockside developments which had also been developed on the modernist scale, and so made few concessions to pedestrians. At length we found the restaurant we were looking for, and had paella for lunch with a beer and a bottle of white wine. After this we walked to water’s edge along a boardwalk that was put there presumably so one can approach the beach without getting too sandy (!) We then walked along water’s edge for a while. Susie bought a bracelet from a beachside stall and, as the shadows grew longer on the sand, we caught a bus back to old city where we purchased a few small necessities and took a siesta. Our last evening in Valencia was a quiet one, as the following morning we would have to pack up and relocate to Cuenca.