Spain – Page 22 – From Pyrenees to Pennines

Washday

I’m a simple soul. Watching a line of clean washing blowing and tugging on the line on a sunny, breezy day is one of life’s small pleasures. Gathering up the clean dry clothes and sheets at the end of the day, and burying my nose into the pile for that incomparable fresh smell of clean washing is another.

Perhaps this is why, when I’m in Spain, I’m a sucker for shots of long lines of clean washing draping from a balcony, or hanging from a sagging line on some tall apartment block.

And that is my angle on why I’d never have a tumble drier in the house, Ragtag Daily Prompt readers. Damp-and-refusing-to-dry washing is much more my cup of tea.

Ragtag Saturday: Foraging in Valencia for marmalade in England

One of the joys of being in Valencia was walking down streets and through parks lined with orange trees. It’s orange season right now, so they were looking at their best. They’re bitter Seville oranges of course, the ones we use for marmalade. Juicy sweet ones would probably be too much of a temptation for passers-by.

Last Sunday though, when we were walking in the Turia, we spotted fallen fruit under many of the trees. A forager by nature, I couldn’t leave them there to rot. No, we had to gather them, so that when we returned home, we could have a very special souvenir of our holiday. Home-made marmalade, cooked from fruit gathered in Orange Central: Valencia.

Foraged oranges.

Part prepared…..

Chopped and ready for the final bit of cooking.

I can’t show you the finished article. The marmalade is simmering on the stove as I type.

Today’s Ragtag Challenge is: cook

P.S. …..

Ragtag Saturday on Sunday: The river that isn’t a river

Yesterday, I showed you a Valencian scene from centuries ago: a man fishing in the River Túria.

No, the water you see isn’t the river. Cooling ponds and watercourses break up the space.

Come with us now to see it as it is today. No longer a river, but a long sinuous public park wandering the northern edge of the old city centre. By 1957, the river had flooded once too often. Too many homes had been lost and livelihoods ruined. The city made the bold choice to move the river, and give the vacated space not to a road, not to housing, but to the people, as a park. At any moment of the day you’ll find commuting cyclists, dog walkers, joggers, families, elderly couples, sporty types – all enjoying this 9 km. long space.

Today, we were there too, walking under ancient 15th century bridges, through cool wooded glades, all the way to the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, Valencia’s iconic futuristic cultural and leisure centre.

So this is part two of my contribution to Saturday’s Ragtag Challenge: and no river in sight.

Ragtag Saturday: Gone fishing

This fisherman is trying for his daily catch on Valencia’s River Túria. I found him on the staircase of the Horchateria Santa Catalina.

Horchateria? Yes: it’s a café where you go to drink horchata, a traditional Valencian drink made with dried and sweetened tiger nuts. It’s rather good, if a little sweet.

Anyway, we were just leaving after our break when we spotted this bucolic scene. And it reminded me that we haven’t yet gone for a walk along the Túria, Valencia’s river-that-is-not-a-river. More of that tomorrow.

Today’s Ragtag Challenge is ‘River’.

Reading, Valencia style

I’m very keen on Valencia’s central library. It’s situated in a wonderful building founded in 1409 as the Hospital for the Poor Innocents. Astonishingly, it was a psychiatric hospital – Europe’s first. The splendid space shown here was for male patients. Females had the same arrangement upstairs. Suitable ceramic panels showing suitable saints still remain.

In 1979, the hospital moved on, and the library moved in. What a place! It was busy with readers choosing books, students writing essays. Malcolm and I sat and read yesterday’s Times.

We looked round the children’s section. We found a good selection of books in other languages, including a large selection in English. There are two reading and philosophy clubs: one for pre-teens, the other for teenagers.

And look at this list of activities. I draw your particular attention to the last one.

As one of the volunteers at Ripon Library – one of hundreds us working throughout the UK to help keep the library services functioning now that Government funding, or lack of it, prevents libraries employing a full complement of professional staff, I was beyond impressed.

Any drainpipe will do

If you’re walking down a street in the older parts of Valencia – this one perhaps – look around you.

Look at the drainpipes. At round about head height. You might find someone like this…

Keep looking. You’ll find lots more. I don’t know why they’re there, but I’m enjoying hunting.

Order what you like … so long as it’s rice

Valencia is paella’s capital city. And l’Albufera is its birthplace. Here’s why.

When I was last in Valencia, I was captivated by Albufera Natural Park, with its dunes, Mediterranean forest, and above all, the immense lagoon of the Albufera. Water is king. I had to show Malcolm.

Once, l’Albufera was open sea. Rivers such as the Turia dragged silt and mud to the coast, and gradually this patch of sea became a lake. A saltwater lake. Aquifers beneath gradually sweetened the water. And over the centuries, man intervened, claiming shallow waters for paddy fields. Rice, rice and more rice grows here. Here’s a paddy field, resting for the winter.

Water both shallow and deep ensures this place is a Mecca for birds. Northern birds fly south to winter here, birds from Africa come too.

Locals spend their summers cultivating rice, and their winters fishing the rich waters of the lagoon for carp, eels and other fish, sharing their catch with the bird life.

We explored some of the park before moving on to the small town at the edge of the lagoon, El Palmar. No need to ask what we had for lunch. There were all kinds of paella on the menu, but paella it was. Eaten in the open air – 18° in January seems miraculous to us.

Then a boat trip. We had to have a boat trip. Restful, restorative…. a wonderful afternoon, shared with herons, egrets, cormorants and all kinds of ducks. A truly special day. Camera photos once I get home. For now, we’ll make do with the phone.

Art in the street

It was back to work as usual for Team Barcelona on Monday, so we left them to it and came to Valencia.

It’s lovely to be back, revisiting old haunts from last November, and making fresh discoveries. Pottering down streets in long-established communities is the best: grand imposing doorways; delicately wrought balconies; elegant stucco. Or these days, street art. Here are a few examples I snapped this afternoon.

Vermuteria

Meeting friends for a meal, with an hour to kill before your restaurant opens? Or linking up with them for an hour after work? Here in Barcelona, you may well head for a vermuteria. There’s vermouth of course, served simply with ice and lemon or in exotic combinations. You can have wine or beer instead if you choose. Order a dish of olives or a simple tapa. But best of all, enjoy the friendly atmosphere, and relish a cosy convivial moment in a place that may well have been around for over fifty years. And will still be here in fifty more.

Ragtag Saturday: Three Kings visit Barcelona

Today is the day when the Three Kings – the same ones who visited the infant Jesus – begin their journey to visit all children in the Spanish speaking world to deliver presents to them. We watched the Carnival parade they brought with them as they passed through Barcelona earlier this evening. Dancing, singing, exhuberant and imaginative displays had us enthralled for an hour or more. It was never like this in biblical times, I’m sure.