Been lazy, haven’t posted since the end of June. Bad us.

In late June we caught the Metro out to the suburb town of Manises near the airport, to visit the Ceramics Museum there. It was an average Thursday afternoon but very shortly after the lockdown was lifted and sadly, the museum itself was closed. We were in luck though; the city fathers had created a little self-guided tour of the high points of the town, along with a Youtube audio tour, so we followed that. The audio tour was a bit of a disappointment since it mostly focused on the architecture of the churches along the way — the churches that were closed so we couldn’t even see the referenced features. Still, we got out of the flat and out of town, had a nice walk in the sun and explored a little.

The tourist office. Nice intro to the town.

Just a little square with fountain we came across.

Old ceramics factory storefront. It was closed so we weren’t able to go inside but the tiles on the outside were beautiful. Note the sundial above.

Invasive species don’t always have to be prickly and ugly.

These three shots are from the outside of the local supermarket. It sits on the site of the old water purification works which was the center of the town’s life and market. The whole storefront has these scenes, these are just samples.

Me, circa 1600

Cindy, from a past life.

Aín

Right at the end of June we rented a car and took a trip north of town to the tiny town of Aín in the mountains, to get a little hiking in. We found the location using the Wikiloc app and it looked like a pleasant little walk. Well. Somehow, Wikiloc doesn’t work all that well with Google Maps so pathfinding to the town was troublesome, and GPS didn’t really work out in the boondocks so we found ourselves struggling a bit to find the trailhead. Fortunately, we stumbled into somebody’s cork farm, which was educational.

Every 8 years they peel away the bark from the cork trees, up to the first branch or as high as a man can reach, whichever is lower, then let it grow back. This apparently doesn’t hurt them. The landscape behind the tree was pretty much our view for the day; dry scrubby hills. Nice change from the city.

We did finally figure out where the trail started and it turned out to be fairly well marked once we realized what we were looking for (in this case, painted stripes along the route) and were able to make our way comfortably without need of the cellphone GPS.

A remarkable amount of the countryside is terraced

Shade is precious

Up and over the hill, and we came to the town itself.

In town was a lovely place to be.

We stopped long enough to get a drink at the local watering hole, then it was back over the hill to the car.

The road out of town. There are a lot of abandoned and semi-abandoned stone buildings on the outskirts of town; from our limited experience this may not be unusual in the campo.

July 4

For the fourth of July we attended a lunch hosted by Democrats Abroad at a local restaurant, Franky’s American Restaurant, which can only be described as a Valencian idea of American food. It was good enough and it was great to get to meet some like-minded Americans here in Valencia.

There was Patricia whose husband couldn’t make it to the lunch but who has lived in Hong Kong, Texas, Arizona and now Valencia…maybe a couple other places…for extended periods. There was Alex, who was originally from Argentina, was planning to settle down in New York until he met Guillermo in Spain; they dated and were soon married and it just made more sense to be in Spain. I didn’t catch others’ names or whole stories but it was just a nice bunch of people.

The group had reserved two tables, one inside the restaurant and the other on the terrace. We requested to eat outdoors and were thankful we did. This was our first real venture out into a gathering with strangers in the world and it was uncomfortable to be elbow to elbow and unmasked (as everyone quickly was) for a long period of time. I’m not actually sure I could have managed to stay inside in those conditions.

Altea

Looking out over the town of Altea

The next day, we took a group bus tour to the beach resort town of Altea. This was organized by a local bike tour shop and included a beachfront bike ride in the package, along with lunch. We caught a morning cab to the meeting point in El Cabanyal, the beachfront neighborhood of Valencia. After some organization of the bikes and riders, we all climbed aboard a tourist coach and headed south. Because these are the times we live in, I have to say that the tour operators were careful to get everyone fully inside their masks and people mostly complied.

When we arrived in the town, we had the opportunity to do a walk through the town with our guides but instead chose to sit by the seaside and grab a coffee. I think we made a good choice. I got a chance to chat with the British, sorry, English, owners of the coffee shop, who have been here for years and have no plans to go back, Brexit or not. They weren’t at all worried about the effects of Brexit and even were fairly optimistic for the rest of this season, saying that Spaniards were starting to come out.

This is the northern end of the resort area that includes Benidorm, on the Costa Blanca, where one could comfortably live without ever having to learn Spanish. I’m saying there are lots of British tourists and expats in this place. Cindy and I were both attracted and appalled by this idea.

The beach isn’t sandy loveliness but the Med is beautiful here.

At any rate, we killed time until lunch where we chickened out on eating inside with the group and instead ate on the terrace. Fortunately we enjoy each others’ company and didn’t miss the others. Lunch was a lovely Indian meal. Afterward, those of us who chose to bike got going along the beach. We took a little detour inland along the river that runs through town, riding through the rushes.

Looking northwest at the coastal mountains

Some of our companions for the afternoon

We returned to the beach and rode next to the beautiful blue Mediterranean, then returned to the town center to bus our way back home. Mask discipline was much worse on the way back and again left us pretty uncomfortable. We’re not likely to try another tour like that soon.

So far we’ve managed to avoid getting the plague. We’ve even done another trip, but that’s going to have to be a new post. Meanwhile it’s getting hot here in Valencia, with temperatures up into the 90s and high humidity. We’re struggling to keep our cool but the good news is that we’ll be spending most of August on the north coast, where temps are much more like Seattle. Evidently Valencia largely shuts down in August and we don’t want to be here to see what that looks like.

We took another trip, to Alicante, which is fodder for another post. Stay safe, stay cool.

Following are some random photos from the camera roll…

Factory? Maybe. Somebody was fixing on it when I took this picture though.

Random wall by a farm field outside Valencia

LOOK OUT FOR THE BATS!