My first visit to Valencia in Spain was in 1999 and I was mightily impressed by the city. The journey there was a different matter. At the time getting cheap flights online was in its infancy. There were no direct flights from Dublin and the likes of Ryanair did not serve the city, which was not then a major tourist destination.
I told my two brothers I’d take care of travel arrangements as I had access to a computer. I eventually, after much effort, managed to get rock-bottom fares. But the fares were to turn out to be the only cheap thing about the trip. The flights involved going from Shannon to Brussels and then Brussels to Barcelona.
This meant we had to drive from Dublin to Shannon and as the first flight was early in the morning we arranged to stay the night before with a cousin in Newmarket on Fergus in Clare. Of course as a token of our appreciation we took his wife and himself out for a pricey meal. We finally arrived in Brussels airport the next morning to discover it wasn’t the most exciting landing spot in the world, but we whiled away the day there spending our money on high-priced food and drink. By the time we got into Barcelona that night all the trains to Valencia had gone and we hadn’t a clue about buses. The result was that we had to find a local B&B, which again set us back quite a bit. We were also all pretty much exhausted as the time entailed to get there could have had us half way round the globe.
However, Valencia was worth the pain and my brothers eventually forgave me. My older brother Bernard had bought a small flat in Benimaclet, a student area of the city teeming with life. I remember thinking it was really exotic to have orange trees growing in the streets, not that you would eat any of them as they were bitter.
The time of year was January but the temperatures were akin to June in Dublin. We met my cousin Declan, an English teacher who lived in the city. He was dressed in a heavy-coat with a hat and scarf while we donned T-shirts and shorts. “It’s winter here, Noel,” was his succinct reply to a question regarding his choice of attire. I suppose it made sense when you consider that temperatures can go well over an unbearable 40 degrees in the summer. We were delighted with the near 20 degrees in January.
The city is cosmopolitan now but back then it was a very much a Spanish city or should I say Valencian and Spanish. It reminded me of home as all the street signs were bilingual Spanish and Valencian. The city was the poor relation to Madrid and Barcelona as it had been a seat of government for the republican forces during the Spanish civil war and therefore not favoured by Franco.
Our Spanish at the time was limited to “adios” and “gracias” and the locals had little or no English. This was to have some interesting consequences. On one occasion when I was out for a meal with the two amigos, we hadn’t a clue about the menu and just pointed to the board outside. This led to us each being served a big plate of paella, a classic local rice dish and very tasty. We had already been given bread and a bottle of wine. However, on finishing what we thought was our meal we were each presented with a plate of chicken, fried potatoes and some vegetables. Despite our protestations that the dishes must be for another table the waiter refused to go away and we were left to eat them. This was then followed by a dessert.
We couldn’t figure it out but we had, without realising, been served the classic “menú del día”. When the very modest bill arrived we gave a decent tip but the waiter returned indicating we had given too much money. We tried to explain it was a tip but got nowhere as we soon discovered tipping was not widespread or expected locally.
One time my brother Bernard got himself in real trouble when he gave one of his favourite hostelries a large tip as he was heading back to Dublin. He was told by the son of the owner in broken English that they didn’t need his money. However, honour was eventually restored and they became the best of friends.
The city back then was small and compact but has grown rapidly since. The river Turia ran through it but was diverted after catastrophic flooding in the late 1950s which claimed many lives. The work involved massive engineering creating a new river course to the south of the city. One of the benefits was that the old river bed became a linear park which has provided a green lung for Valencia. Think two or three times the width of the Liffey full of walks, gardens, football pitches, playgrounds and some incredible modern architecture.
Sadly I was there for the recent flooding but the city was spared due to the rerouted Turia which carried massive amounts of water away from it. However, just a few miles distant there was devastation and lives lost.