Spring in València

Knowing I was getting close to the end of my stay in this beautiful city, I’ve been trying to spend as much time just wondering around the various neighbourhoods I’ve already become familiar with and also detour or linger in those I haven’t spent much time in. I have already booked my next place, in the town of Dènia, in the south province of Alicante, and now I was starting to realize how difficult it will be to leave here. My reason for moving on is simple: this is what I was supposed to be doing all along, moving from place to place to get a sense of what the different regions were like, and it was only due to all the Covid restrictions that I felt compelled to stay put here. To be honest, if I had really wanted to leave sooner, I probably could have. I’m sure I could have come up with a valid reason to cross Comunidad borders, especially if travelling by train, since nobody ever asked me where I was going or why on my recent trip to Madrid. I guess I’m not much of a rule-breaker, even when those rules are flexible.

To take advantage of the beautiful weather, as well, I took to the streets. Since it is impossible to go anywhere without passing through Plaça de l’Ajuntament, I was very happy to see that spring has, in fact, arrived here, as evidenced not only by the beginning blooms of the Jacaranda trees, but also the crowds of people and the local entertainers who have been missing from the public eye for a long time. The short dude dressed in a matador outfit singing and dancing at different spots throughout the centre has been a fixture throughout, and a very annoying one at that, but now other buskers have been slowly emerging to bring joy to the young and old alike.

On this particular day, I headed towards La Xerea, the eastern part of Ciutat Vella. This part is quite different from the other neighbourhoods: there are way more large, stately buildings, most of them with an institutional air so it’s not surprising that many of them are, in fact, government or large enterprise edifices. There are also two parks here, besides Turia, the natural border of all the neighbourhoods in the area: El Parterre in Plaça d’Alfons el Magnànim and Jardins de la Glorieta. The latter is the one I found myself in resting for a while. Besides spying on a group of young people just hanging out, I also spotted this lovely scene:

I’ve been fascinated by the ginormous trees that occupy these two little parks; I’ve walked past them numerous times and other than checking out a species name tag on one of them a while back, I had not really investigated further. Ewa and I were convinced, originally, that, due to their size, these trees must have been ancient. To our surprise, the tag identified them as Ficus macrophylla, or Moreton Bay Fig as they’re more commonly known, and they are native to Australia so a little mental math made it clear that while they’re not young, they are simply rather fast-growing transplants. I have not been able to find any information for why the city elders had them planted here but these trees have been popular in the past as shade and feature trees in public parks and gardens in warmer climates, such as California, Portugal, Italy, and Spain. I can totally understand their utility as shade trees, they really are very large. They also are attractive to tourists, I’m told, as their unusual root systems create an almost magical, limb-like mazes above ground. Many a visitor has had their photo taken though I would advise people to avoid going among the roots as that area is a favourite destination for the local dogs to go do their business. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I also came across an interesting monument, one dedicated to abandoned animals and the people who care for them. I found that to be a very sweet thing to see though, other than the homeless cats at pretty much any large-enough park or garden, I haven’t really seen many homeless dogs. Of course, that’s a good thing, though I suspect they have the same problem with dogs in rescue situations that exist in Canada and all other countries.

One of the large institutions in the area happens to be Fundació Bancaixa, an expansive facility hosting temporary art exhibitions, cultural workshops, and conferences, which just happened to have an art exhibit that I have been meaning to visit and that’s where I headed to next.