We have visited Valencia three times now, and for some reason we do not enjoy ourselves here. I even googled to see what its reputation was among Spaniards, and it turns out it is pretty positive. So Ton and I are scratching our heads about why we have never enjoyed our visits here.
Our first stop today was the market as Ton wanted to look for some spices, and a local nougat based candy, and Horchata. We succeeded in finding all three. The market is enormous and the highlight of our visit. But the interactions with the shop owners were brusque, usually the shop owners we deal with are friendly and happy to explain things. Here it was tell me what you want and hand over your card.
Ton went to get a picture of the interior of the market, and one shop owner who she wasn’t even pointing the camera at shouted at her-no photos! It wasn’t the warm Spain we are used to.
After an hour in the market we headed to the central square to see what was happening. There was another tent city set up in front of the city hall that occupied about 1/3 of the square. Both the protestors and the police looked very bored.
We had tried a couple of pastries in the market, but went for a Pinxtos lunch in a very well decorated but mostly empty Basque restaurant. Without the happy crowd of Basques it wasn’t quite the same experience, though the Pinxtos were excellent.
About 2 we ran out of ideas so decided to head back to our garage. The bus was packed when we got on, but we managed to acquire seats. Yesterday, I didn’t hit the stop button and we missed our stop. I kept waiting for the crowd to thin on the bus but if anything it got denser. When we came to our stop and I stood up the way to the door was packed, but usually people will make some effort to get out of the way. In this case nobody did and the people near us who knew we were not Spanish speakers made no effort to help. So once again we missed our stop. I was very frustrated at one guy who smirked and gave me a shrug like-too bad gringo. But I held my tongue.
So during the extra 500 meters we had to walk back to the campground Ton and I came to the conclusion that any further adventures in Spain would not include Valencia. For whatever reason Valencia and the Corbin’s are not made for each other.