Ateneu Mercantil de València

Many times as we wondered around Plaça de l’Ajuntament, we kept noticing a building where there was clearly a restaurant on one of the higher floors offering what must have been a great view. On this day, after meeting up after Ewa’s classes and having a bite to eat, we decided it was time to go check it out. We certainly did not expect such a great vantage point and it only cost three euros to enjoy it.

Ateneu Mercantil de València is a weird building. It seems to hold a variety of rooms and halls on various floors and be used for a whole plethora of events and expositions. We have tickets to a music concert here in January so I will be able to report back as to how those happen but in the meantime, we took the elevator to the top floor to see for ourselves what the big deal was. We were met by a man who collected the three euros (each) from us even though the folks at the ground level said it was free to go up. I guess they meant it was free to take the elevator but not free to actually see the view. Nice deal they’ve got there. He did give us some coupons for a euro or two off drinks at the fancy bar at the rooftop terrace but it was an empty gesture since the prices of those fancy drinks were even fancier. We settled for the view.

And what a great view it was. Unfortunately, as I have mentioned before, the early-setting winter sun, however warm and pretty, is really not the ideal companion for most photos, sometimes even during the golden hour. This proved the case again and many of my photos looking west (i.e. towards many interesting buildings below) look rather drab. I do apologize for that but there really was nothing I could do. We walked around the roof (bar) area and up to some elevated viewing spots and tried to take in the 360° vistas. What was interesting to note was the fact that Valencia has an uncanny ability to look both big and small at the same time. I can’t explain it. It just does. But it was cool to see the now familiar towers and cupolas of the various churches, museums, or palacios. And, in the distance, there was good ol’ la Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, always peeking out from behind something. Being up there also reminded me just how flat this city is and the closest mountains aren’t all that close.

After getting our 3€’s fill of city viewing, we made our way back down. Instead of going all the way, however, I convinced Ewa that we should wonder around the building a bit so we got off on the floor marked as having the restaurant we thought we’d seen from below. She was a little nervous about doing so, there didn’t seem to be any people around, but I figured we’d just pull the “lost tourist” card if anyone asked and that would be it. Totally unsurprisingly nobody even noticed us, to the point that even the waiter at the restaurant didn’t bother to come over and ask us if we wanted anything, our making ourselves comfortable at one of the balcony tables notwithstanding. I did go and nudge him a bit so we got a couple of cafés con leche and settled in to watch the sunset.

For a little background, the group that owns this building has been around since 1879 and exists to “meet the cultural and training needs, in their profession, of people who work in commerce.” In its 142 years of life, it has been one of the most important institutions in Valencian civil society, in cultural, commercial, and leisure matters, and, judging by the sheer number of events and programmes they have on the go, it really is quite an impressive organization.