Málaga es azúcar y especias

Málaga is sugar and spice...

It's a rite of passage, isn't it? Breaking out from the comforting embrace of home, and pushing out into the world to experience what's out there, good and bad. 

Somewhere in Italy, 3 twenty-somethings decided to take this leap... with a little persuasion from Madre e Padre, I happen to know. They chose València as their first port of call, and we’re delighted that they chose to use our apartment to stay in for the duration. 

 

This gives us a chance to make another autumn visit to Málaga. Always a pleasure, always a great experience. But you have to make it real... it can't all be sugar-coated.

The food that enters the mind must be watched as closely
as the food that enters the body.
Pat Buchanan

 

We arrived at our neat little rented apartment on the west side of centro on a rainy Saturday evening. There had been bad weather in the south of Spain, and this was pushing away to the east, but not quickly. It would linger until early in the week that followed, before giving way to glorious warm sunshine and clear, cool evenings.

Centro is eternally teeming with visitors and locals alike. We had arrived in the middle of a lively weekend, and the streets, restaurants and bars were packed. Málaga was alive with a hugely diverse mix of people wandering, rushing, delivering, organizing, stopping, starting, moving, talking, eating, smoking, drinking and generally making Málaga centro into that loveable thing that Málaga centro is.

 

But there were heavy showers that need to be dodged. There are places in the very heart of centro that remain attractive for drinking and eating despite the brazen commerciality of those calles and plazas. We sat at one of these with cañas, indulging in one of life’s great pleasures… people-watching.

 

Rain came and went. Small children in wellies splashed in puddles. Tourists (exclusively male) attempted to vindicate their decision to bring only t-shirts and shorts by pretending they were not actually wet and freezing cold.

We ate well outdoors, under a canopy that threatened to give in to the heavy showers… then made our way to the west side of centro, close to the Rio Guadalmedina, and close to our apartment for the week.

 

We found a café that we had not seen on previous visits, at the previously unremarkable end of a busy street that starts in a corner of Plaza de la Constitución. There were several other restaurants close by. The evenings were still warm enough to be outside, and we found high stools at barrel tables.

 

This taberna will remain nameless in this blog post, as comments will be made later, and we’ll just scratch the surface a little. My comments will be a bit more real than the tourist vision.

 

We enjoyed decent wine, and some interesting interaction with our fellow punters… as the barrel tables left little room for exclusivity. A couple close to us (she Bulgarian, he Czech) were Málaga residents, and were accompanied by her rather eccentric mother, who now lives in the Netherlands. They had chosen English as the common language between them, and with anyone they interacted with.

 

The younger woman reminded me of myself (stay with me here) as she reached out us across the barrels as if to offer help. I understood what she was doing. I share this urge when in València, this urge (which I mostly resist) to offer advice and local knowledge to the foreign visitor, often without even being asked or prompted. We didn’t need any help on this occasion, but I get you, and I know you wanted to help.

 

What is impossible to ignore in Málaga is sweet things. Seemingly every street has one or more outlets for cakes, sweets, biscuits, desserts, chocolate, ice cream, yogurt, candied fruit, nougat, toffee apples, milk shakes, slushies. Sweetness excess.

A brand from Lisboa has several sites exclusively selling the delightful Portugese Pasteis de Nata. A café right outside the door of our apartment building had dedicated itself to the worship of cheesecake (and is therefore a very good thing in my opinion) and was packed at all hours of the day and evening. The more proactive shops posted staff outside to offer the innocent passer-by a tantalizing taste of sugar and spice, and to draw them into their sweet, comforting, calorific world.

 

There are specialist sweet shop brands, such as Belros and Captain Candy*. The queues outside the best cake shops were long, particularly leading into the weekend.

This is no more than an observation… a realization that this proliferation of sugary confections is too emphatic to be just another grab for the tourist dollar. It’s not an objection, and I wouldn’t suggest that the traditional shops are being pushed out in any way. Málaga still has, and always has had wonderful traditional food shops for jamon, bacalao, charcuteria, amazing canned and preserved goods, and so many other ingredients for great Spanish food… with quality and simplicity at its core. And of course, the first-class produce from land and sea at the brilliant Mercado de Atarazanas.

 

But I’ve chosen this retail outlet sugar-high proliferation as a theme for this blog post, and so you will have to cope with the occasional clumsy analogy and sweet-related pun along the way. Apologies in advance.

 

“Poner la guinda del pastel”

Spanish saying: “To put the icing on the cake”… adding a final detail or element
to a situation that perfects or embellishes it.

 

Heavy showers continued through the weekend and into Monday. Our “shopping” visits to the usual suspects: Massimo Dutti, Mango, Zara, Natura and so on were little more than chances to stay dry. By lunchtime on the Monday, the rain had pretty much relented, so our usual visit to Muelle Uno was very much back on the agenda.

 

Crossing the road at Plaza de la Marina and onto the Paseo de Muelle Uno… Málaga changes here. It changes from traditional-but-modern Spanish city, and becomes a smart, airy, cosmopolitan sea port and marina. A leisure and retail experience that delivers on every visit. An even bigger choice of cafés, bars and restaurants now, it grows and grows in stature.

Walking along under the great pergola, past the Palmeral de las Sorpresas, something new (although not unexpected) starts to become clear. Over our last couple of visits, it had been obvious that Málaga was going for the superyacht market. The quayside at Muelle Uno was being developed, more efficient and sophisticated facilities installed, glass walls raised to separate us from them, and provide security for the visiting super-rich.

 

This appears to have succeeded. Throughout our stay, 3 enormous super-yachts were moored along the quayside. Initially, one gazed in wonder at the sheer size and scale of these craft. A little googling** told us that they were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The largest had its name obscured, presumably out of a “need” for anonymity. These huge craft, the size of car ferries in another world, can accommodate perhaps 18 guests…. but this requires 30+ crew, to pander to their every need. The maintenance and mooring costs run into the tens of millions annually.

I was far from star-struck. You don’t have to look and think too hard to realise how obscene this all is. How sickly sweet. They’re all registered in tax havens. They will be floating at any given quayside for much of the year, costing millions, but empty. They are the kid at school who kept the sweets in his pocket and gorged on them all, growing more bloated by the day.

If they bring prosperity to the city that benefits the Malagüeños, then that is a good thing, but like I said… it feels obscene. It felt like the opposite of the famous Malagüeño modesty and generosity. I’m not sure they belong.

I don’t think it’s high on the list of issues that come with these bloated, floating money-pits, but they also block the view of the city across the harbor from many of the Muelle Uno restaurants. We found a table that had a view between the glistening craft, and enjoyed a nice lunch. We made our way back to town in the sunshine, counting our blessings.

 

The Mercado de Atarazanas is a must-see. It may not be an architectural gem like the incredible modernista Mercado Central de Valencia, but the huge stained glass window across one end of the Mercado Atarazanas is spectacular. It goes without saying that the stalls and produce are worth 2 or 3 circuits of the market. Like a good restaurant menu… you want it all. I’m always conscious (as a tourist) of just getting in the way of the locals’ daily lives occasionally. They have groceries to buy, things to discuss, prices to barter, stock to maintain, floors to wash and actual real life to live.

 

But it’s quite a relaxed feeling in and around the market. If you have your morning coffee at one of the market cafés, it’s a completely different vibe to the city street cafés, or the Plaza de la Marina where we habitually have breakfast. For dedicated people-watchers*** like ourselves, it’s endlessly fascinating. She seems to know everyone, and makes sure everyone knows it... that camarero has styled his beard in the same way as Santiago Abascal, but let’s not read too much into that... that elderly cruise ship group will never keep up with their guide at that pace... the small groups of ancianos habitually stop outside the market entrances and get in everybody’s way… and nobody cares. Every café seems to have a “best mate” type of character, who habitually helps himself to a beer from the fridge, then gets shouted at. He’ll be back in 2 minutes to try again.

A mass of humanity, a more eclectic mix you could not imagine.

 

Less eclectic, less of a hub, less central, but nonetheless one of my Málaga favourites is the Mercado de Salamanca. It does the same job as Mercado de Atarazanas, but it does it on a much smaller scale, it does it without tourists, without cruise ship groups, without waiters and without dramas.

The Mercado de Salamanca sits there north of centro, in El Molinillo, looking pretty in the sunshine. Architecturally, it does a passable impression of Mercado Colon in València, only on a much smaller scale, and without the pretension, overpriced food offerings, and surrounding opulence.

 

Once again (as on a previous visit) it was a great relief to get the first sight of Mercado de Salamanca as we crossed the road from Calle Cruz de Molinillo, and see it unchanged. It remains an authentic barrio market. I hope it always remains so. Mercifully it stands out of the tourist epicenter, so has a reasonable chance.

We walked under its neo-Arabic arch and into its lines of market stalls. The fish, meat, produce, and preserved goods were being bought and sold without pretension or show. Bought and sold by regular Malagüeños who would stop and chat, relate their stories, scold their children, and scurry home with their fresh fish to keep it fresh.

It’s nice to look at, this market, but it’s even nicer to know that it’s genuine, authentic and real. It’s part of the ebb and flow of barrio life, and doesn’t feature in any Málaga tourist guides. It will always be a must visit for me, and I live in eternal hope that it never changes.

 

The Arabic influence gets a brief mention above, but there is enough content to write about the Moorish**** influence in Spain for a 1000 blog posts. 

 

“Europe was darkened at sunset, Cordova shone with public lamps; Europe was dirty, Cordova built a thousand baths; …, Cordova changed its undergarments daily; Europe lay in mud, Cordovas streets were paved; Europes palaces had smoke-holes in the ceiling, Cordovas arabesques were exquisite; Europes nobility could not sign its name, Cordovas children went to school; Europes monks could not read the baptismal service, Cordovas teachers created a library of Alexandrian dimensions. (800-1000 C.E.)”
From “The Muslims in Andalucia”.

 

And I can’t resist adding this delicious quotation from a European scholar sympathetic to the Spaniards:

“the reins of their horses were as fire, their faces black as pitch, their eyes shone like burning candles, their horses were swift as leopards and the riders fiercer than a wolf in a sheepfold at night . . . The noble Goths were broken in an hour, quicker than tongue can tell. Oh luckless Spain!”

 

But it was never luckless. There is very little that one could name in Spain that is not a result of Moorish influence. Theirs was not a brief invasion. In it’s entirety, it wasn’t bravely repelled by chivalrous European knights in shining armour either. 

 

With a heartland in Al Andalus (Southern Spain) the Moors ruled Spain for almost 8 centuries. Their influence extended throughout Europe, and brought great learning, magnificent art and architecture, great science and philosophy. In the countryside, sophisticated irrigation systems still used today (in the Valencian Huerta!) were a testament to their agricultural skills. Many of those most Spanish of things, the pueblos blancos, were raised by the Moors in Spain.

 

When visiting one of Spain’s Moorish sites, I always try to remember how those people so influenced Spain, made it into the country that so many of us love and appreciate today.

 

We climbed the steps and slopes of the Alcazaba, past palms and bougainvillea, between the great bastion walls. The Alcazaba de Málaga does not compare in size and complexity to the spectacular Muslim sites in Sevilla, Cordoba or Granada. Perhaps for that reason, it’s easier to imagine the daily lives of the ruling governor, his family, staff and garrison in this fortified palace. Maybe here, that bit of the past feels more accessible to your imagination.

 

Through the rose garden, past delicately conceived water features, up into the living areas with beautiful architectural detail that you’ll see all over modern Spain. The dominating position over the sea and the city reflected in the breathtaking views all around. And the incredibly skilled construction of the whole edifice, built into the slopes of the Gibralfaro mountain in the middle ages.

It has been said that those 800 years of Muslim rule saved Spain from the Dark Ages.

 

Speaking of the Dark Ages, there are a lot of British Tourists in Málaga*****. All the time.

 

Back in centro at a table in Plaza Carbon, I saw a British couple arrive and sit down to eat. She was facing away from me, and I couldn’t pick her reactions to her male partner, or to anything else. He scowled at the menu, pointing at several things that he clearly disapproved of, until the camarero approached.

 

Sadly, I know that people still employ his chosen method of communication, but I hadn’t heard it used so blatantly for a while. He ordered his drink loudly and clearly in English, looking directly at the waiter: “A GLASS OF RED WINE PLEASE!”. When the waiter replied: “Rioja o Ribera?” our friend from suburban Blighty glared at him, open-mouthed, affronted, as if the waiter had insulted his dear mother. He’d spoken in a language that was not English, and this was clearly unacceptable. This departure from his recognized cultural boundaries had offended him so much that his partner now bore the burden of all further communication, and he sneered his way through his food and drink, clearly not enjoying any aspect of his life whatsoever.

 

I can’t help wondering why some people leave the UK at all.

Another evening 2 middle-aged Brit couples, darlings of Daily-Mail-reading-middle-England, shared a high table close to us in a café. They were undoubtedly the worse for drink, it being the first night of their city break, and as we all know only too well: "In vino veritas".

 

The male members of the group began to reveal their true feelings about immigration “back home”, and the conversation between them basically took an unacceptable turn. The 2 women clearly found it unacceptable also, and (to their great credit) they rather expertly steered the conversation away from “they’re taking all our jobs, they're all rapists… etc, etc”. Despite this, one of our intrepid travellers couldn’t resist underlining the things that he had been prevented from saying with: “The main thing is that you’re born in England. That’s the main thing”.

 

Go home, pendejo.

 

“Imagine what it’s like being an immigrant in Britain…
being told you need to integrate more by people who spend their holidays
pointing at pictures of egg & chips on the menu”.
Frankie Boyle

 

We overheard a very similar group (it’s the same group to all intents and purposes, isn’t it?) discussing the great wooden doors of a nearby Hermandad. “Do you know what’s behind those doors?” one learned individual asked the group. Their disinterested silence didn’t deter him: “It’s a secret society”, he announced.

The Hermandades and Cofradias (as I’ve banged on about in a previous post) are Christian associations of laypeople, some with roots and history dating back to the Middle Ages.

 

They are so secret that their meeting places have wooden doors 2 stories high that open directly onto the street (as in this case) and they invariably have their names in huge letters above these doors (also as in this case). They are integral to the religious and cultural life of Málaga.

 

They are so secret, that they parade through Málaga in huge numbers right through Easter week for everyone to see, carrying enormous religious effigies known as Tronos. Local TV broadcasts the whole thing, and hundreds of thousands of people come to the city to see them.

 

That’s how secret they are.

A final bit of Brit-tourist bashing, and I'll back off: We were at our favourite breakfast café on Plaza de la Marina on sunny morning late in the week. The parakeets squabbled in the palm trees above the canopy. For no good reason that I could tell, all the arriving customers were elderly northern-European tourists, mostly Brits.

 

One old boy (wearing a hat reserved only for his “foreign sorties” and pruning the azaleas) impatiently ordered a café Americano for his dear wife, which duly arrived. The young camarera was expertly serving lots of tables on a busy morning.

 

After a little while, the old boy advised his dear wife to put her saucer on top of her coffee cup, and rudely shouted out to the waitress: “we are waiting for the milk for the coffee! My wife can’t drink her coffee without milk!”. The lack of milk was no more that fault of the waitress than it was the fault of the cow on a distant hillside that was expected to produce it.

 

You’ve ordered an Americano, big fella. A long, black coffee. Add con leche when you order, and you’ve nailed it. Even order it in English if you must, but don’t blame the waitress for your ignorance.

 

We enjoyed a first visit to the Museo del Vino de Málaga. It was a few steps from our apartment, and it seemed rude to ignore it. There was an interesting section on “wine and children” (which we thought was an unusual, and slightly concerning twist on the story of vino) and the museum itself was interesting, if not in-depth. The guy in charge treated us to a little tasting after we had advanced our knowledge of the vinos de Málaga. We enjoyed a local white wine that was not unlike a manzanilla, but then he produced the inevitable Pedro Ximénez. We politely endured the dark, sweet, brown awfulness of it (with apologies to any aficionados) and escaped with thanks.

We wandered once again along the graceful curve of the ever-developing and endlessly absorbing Calle Carreteria and found a cold beer and lunch to take the taste away.

 

Another rewarding visit was to La Casa del Cardenal. A true gem hidden down a narrow street close to the very centre of town, this is an incredible antiques emporium housed in a beautiful 17th century palace. You need to ring the bell to be let in, and then (assuming they like the look of you) you're admitted into a charming central courtyard with several rooms off, displaying hundreds of antiques of all kinds. 

It's like another world. An elderly lady showed us some antique jewellery. We wandered the many side rooms around the courtyard, wishing for the means to get any purchases taken to Valencia... but more importantly a fatter wallet. 

 

Beautiful little nests of tables beckoned. Achingly attractive paintings and a quirky pair of outdoor chairs yearned to be taken home. A lady was looking to buy an antique christening gown and shawl, and the owner was spreading the shawl in the cloister of the courtyard for her to see. The cream embroidery was a thing of beauty.

 

It's worth a visit to see the palace alone. Although it's clearly a financial mountain to climb in terms of upkeep, it's a beautiful and unexpected oasis in the heart of the city.

 

You can only wonder how many of these incredible buildings lie hidden in cities like this, perhaps long forgotten.

And so, back to our barrel-tabled taberna, and the goings-on therein.

 

We visited a few times. Indeed, some of the encounters described above happened here. On one early occasion, we were offered Caldillo de Pintarroja. We were assured that this is a typical dish of Málaga. Best described as a curried fish soup, I would say.

 

In any case, we won’t be having it again, but it seemed to be consumed in large quantities at this taberna. Mostly by the staff and “management”.

 

With all outside barrel tables occupied on another visit, we were forced inside, to dentro, where many tourists prefer not to venture. What dentro does do, is give you a little more insight into the workings of this operation. The staff consisted of:

Several younger waiters and waitresses. They all stuck bravely to their task of serving the outside barrel tables, which were often populated by some of the sub-normal characters that I’ve described above. In most cases, they appeared to be quite engaged with the general running of the place, which is always good to see. They were joined by a couple of slightly older waiters, who tended to take the time to talk to customers a little more, take a genuine interest in them, perhaps have a story to tell.

 

A rotund, brusque chap who appeared to be running the place, a manager. Always dressed in black, with a dirty apron and a sweaty brow. His management style appeared to consist of dramatically demonstrating how hard he was working, but this seemed to a) impress approximately none of his staff, and b) serve only to work himself up into a stressed and sweaty mess. He indulged in exasperated sighs and slammed down his 17^th glass of caldillo onto the bar top to heighten the effect. I’m going to call him (perhaps unkindly) Sancho. 

 

If you were fortunate enough to be served by him, he would dramatically slop the wine into your glass, perhaps spilling a little with a practiced show of urgency, before moving on to the very important thing he had to do next.

There was also a slightly creepy individual, who we initially thought was a very regular customer taking too many liberties. It soon became clear that he was probably the owner, and also appeared to have an interest in the restaurant opposite… a slightly more formal tables-and-chairs sort of a place. He permanently had a glass of red wine on the go, which he kept in a little nook on the bar, just inside the entrance. He generously topped it up regularly, and did the same for his many cronies when they paid him a visit. I’m going to call him Quixote.

 

The first time we sat inside, we were close to the tiny bar area, which may have taken up around a third of the total inside area. This tiny bar area was where food was prepared. It was where glasses and dishes were washed. It was where the waiting staff and Sancho went for endless (large) glasses of caldillo. It was where jamon was cut, and where other seafood was plated up from the glass-fronted cool cabinet a couple of meters away. The till was here of course, the table plan displayed on a greasy screen.

 

Aside of a couple of beer fridges around the room, everything happened in that tiny bar area.

 

Quixote and Sancho had a poor relationship. Quixote was not content to leave Sancho alone to run the taberna as he wanted to do, and constantly interfered. Sancho took his obvious frustration out on his staff, who largely ignored him and got on with what they were doing. Mostly drinking caldillo. A young female waitress (Dulcinea?) gulped it down while she washed up behind that tiny bar, as if her life depended on it. When Sancho reached the end of his tether at one point, and wouldn’t speak to Quixote any more, Quixote nagged at the other staff. They know well enough to ignore him.

It’s only when you get a bit closer to this, take in what’s going on, scratch the surface a little, that you get a more real picture of the lives behind the Tripadvisor reviews. You can feel versions of this soap opera played out in every taberna, café and restaurant across Europe. Dramas, relationships, frustrations, highs, lows, bitter and sweet, sometimes sour and unpalatable.

 

Enough of the dysfunctional taberna and the Cervantes analogies. Inexplicably, they seem to love their Caldillo de Pintarroja. Each to their own.

 

In the middle of the week, we had gone into a nice-looking bar (seemingly an independent in a city with a lot of chain places) on Calle Carreteria for a drink as the nights were getting cool. It was a quiet night, and the staff were hanging Christmas decorations and cleaning a little while they had time on their hands.

We went back in on our last night to eat, and the place was lively. It was Friday night, and the bar was full of (mostly) locals relaxing, eating, drinking, sometimes breaking into song along with the bar staff. As we’d noticed on the previous visit, the place was run by a group of young women who were very clearly working together as a genuine collective, and helping each other to make the whole thing friendly and fun. The food was good, and the drink was good, but most of all, the feel of the place was good. It was refreshing and carefree.

 

I love Spain’s café culture, but it can’t always be said that your average Spanish bar is friendly and fun. We’ll seek the place out next time. I don’t know if those young women had a mantra, but if they do it might be this, because this is what their attitude felt like:

 

"Huele las rosas. Huele el café. Lo que sea que te haga feliz”
"Smell the flowers. Smell the coffee. Whatever it is that makes you happy." Rita Moreno.

 

So, I spared you too many clumsy, sugary analogies and sweet-related puns, as I got diverted from that theme by people and places. But who cares. But there is a lot of confectionery in Málaga.

And the next trip? We hope to be in València for Easter, to feel the uplifting joy of the Domingo de Pascua parade in the Cabañal, and to remind ourselves how lucky we are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* It should be said that Belros and Captain Candy are not exclusive to Málaga.

 

** Perhaps ironically, one of the founders of Google had his stinking great superyacht moored on Muelle Uno the week before we arrived.

 

*** People-watching might sound sinister to some. It’s far from it. It’s a harmless, free, victimless pastime that can provide endless fun, pleasure, topics of conversation and content for self-indulgent blog posts. Wear sunglasses if you’re afraid of upsetting anyone.

 

**** Moors are not a single or distinct race. It was/is a term used to describe Muslims in general, but especially those of Arab or Berber descent.

***** I am acutely and constantly aware that I am one of these things, at least when not in València. I’m not here to tell anyone how to behave, but some of that self-awareness may be a benefit in some cases. Just sayin’.

 

 

 

 

Toda la vida humana está aquí

All human life is here:

A family from Serbia wanted to spend 3 months June-August in the Valencia apartment, to enjoy a full summer in Southern Europe and the experiences that go with it.

It always feels a little sad to not enjoy our summer holiday in Valencia, but we booked a small apartment in delightful Estepona again for our July/August holiday, and counted our blessings.

Then our Serbian family change their plans, and so did we: Cancel Estepona, book Valencia flights… Another Valencian summer holiday.

During the course of our travels and the holiday itself, I enjoyed 2 books:

 

Slow Trains Around Spain
A 3,000-Mile Adventure on 52 Rides
By Tom Chesshyre

 

A People Betrayed
A history of corruption, political incompetence and social division in modern Spain
By Paul Preston

 

Yes, this is the point where you judge me on my choice of reading (should you wish to do so) but I will elaborate on both choices out of some unnecessary need to justify:

 

Tom Chesshyre’s travelogue got my attention because of his deliberate choice of slow trains, and his meandering route through the maximum amount of Spanish towns and cities that could realistically be visited on his journey. The journey is less about the trains, and more about the individual journeys. And yet (for me at least) it’s more about the stops, the towns and the cities, and the people he meets, than it is about the journeys.

 

Paul Preston’s hefty Spanish history (specifically the period of the Borbón monarchy from King Alfonso XII in 1874 to the current King Felipe VI) theorises that the Spanish people have been comprehensively betrayed over time by their politicians, military and church. Preston demonstrates such impressive knowledge in supporting his theory through 700+ pages that it is hard to disagree.

 

So… on the surface, one book is about train travel, and the other is about history and politics. But they are both really about people.

 

We arrive in Valencia close to the end of July, and this means the final acts of the Gran Feria de Valencia.

Correfoc is a night-time parade through the streets in the city centre, and nobody who knows Valencia at all will be surprised to learn that fireworks are heavily involved. The participants are dressed as devils, and they shoot huge streams of sparks into and around the crowd. Firecrackers are thrown in the street, and there are fire-eaters and marching bands. As this is an “open” parade with no barriers, some of the onlookers will try to participate and get involved with the devils and their streaming sparks, whereas others will rush backwards with a scream.

It’s a contrast to the relative formality of a Mascleta, and the open nature of this street event, the participation and the perceived jeopardy* made it great fun for the first night of a visit.

The final act of the Gran Feria is La Batalla de Flores. I’d read about this event before, and seen many photos, so it was good to get a chance to experience it.

Along a stretch of the Paseo de la Alameda, a wide tree-lined avenue alongside the beautiful Jardin del Turia, a circuit had been laid out. The tarmac that normally hummed with traffic had been laid with sawdust, barriers had been erected, and the 2 elegant horses with uniformed riders that accompany many Valencian parades trotted furtively up and down. 

As the heat waned a little around 8pm, we found a place behind the sections of the crowd reserved for the family and friends of the participants… crates and crates of orange carnation heads stacked before them.

I felt a sharp elbow in my side, insistent enough to be more that what you might expect when standing in a crowd. A diminutive lady who had not been there when we arrived had delivered this elbow. It seems that she had chosen to stand behind and to the left of me, and then complain that she couldn’t see that parade that hadn’t started yet.

Without getting into a conversation about her choice of vantage point behind a 1.9 metre tall Ingles, I dutifully moved back to allow her to see. My little sacrifice (also known as an avoidance of conflict) did mean that I could allow 2 other people to move forward, so there were other winners here.

 

Women of a certain age in Spain can be challenging. There’s always an obvious solution however, because they’re always right. It’s everyone else that’s wrong.

Batalla de Flores began with huge, elaborate floats parading the circuit, pulled by sometimes straining horses covered in elaborate harnesses, decorative blankets and headgear in 30º heat. What was obvious (in a familiar kind of way) was the effort that had gone into creating these floats. They had themes such as ancient Egypt, Rome or the undersea world. This effort that is consistently put into these traditional events demonstrates the unshakeable pride in Valencian culture that’s shared by all.

On many floats, a dozen or so Falleras rode, and were all waves and smiles as if it were Fallas itself… taken by surprise every time the horses suddenly pulled up… then taken by surprise again, with a giggle every time the horses jerked forward once more. Other floats had the queens of other festivals in the region, groups of women enacting a beach scene, and groups of men in white outfits with panama hats. What all the float riders had in common was that they carried a tennis racket.

There was a sudden countdown, the paying guests in front of us dived into the crates of carnations, and threw them in thousands at the people on the floats. Everyone with a tennis racket tried to bat them back at the throwers, and it was delightful chaos for several crazy minutes.

The Benny Hill theme** seemed hugely appropriate during this joyful exchange. I’m not even sure if it was just in my head or actually played over the PA that had been announcing each float.

 

As the flower battle subsided, we walked away from the flower-strewn alameda, the beautiful traditional dress, the sweating horses, the pointy elbows, the joy and the laughter. We did as we often do after another unique experience… we shake our heads a little with smiles on our faces, filled with the joy of the whole thing.

 

July and August holidays mean beach. We catch the tranvia from the Sagunt parada which, despite its detour down Carrer d’Almassora to get passengers as close as possible to the old town, takes only 20 minutes to arrive at the 2 beach-side stops.

Stepping off the tranvia on Carrer d'Eugènia Viñes into the heat, you cross the street, head down the short Carrer dels Columbretes and step into the sudden feeling of space at the other side of Carrer de Pavia. You get your first sight of the beach and sea as you move into the huge space at the side of the Las Arenas Balneario Resort. When the ugly hotel is mercifully behind you and out of sight, your day on the beach has begun.

If you forgo the obvious comforts of sunbeds and their parasols, and if you can resist the many delights of any of the 16 quioscos that sit in a row from the start of Las Arenas all the way to Patacona… then the beach and the sun, and the breeze and the sea are free. And for this reason, toda la vida humana está aquí.

A big group of Spanish teens might carry only towels and a football for a great day out, whereas a 3-generation family might appear to be carrying the majority of the contents of their house on the tranvia, stacked on to a wheeled trolley for a day at Playa de la Malvarrosa. Families will tend to make camp (and they really do make camp) close to the sea, to avoid the hottest of the sand closer to the quioscos, whereas your average guest from the Las Arenas Balneario Resort may have cash to spend, and so will be tempted by the costly sunbeds and sombrillas, and make their way to the quioscos for lunch, ice-creams and mojitos.

The beach sellers move along the beach with cold beers, empanadas, pareos and football shirts. They’ll offer hair-braiding and henna tattoos. Their shouts and calls become familiar and they’re part of the fabric of beach life… until the police quad-bikes appear and they blend into the beach population with varying degrees of success.

 

We particularly noticed a strong presence of young European visitors this time… Scandinavia, UK, Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, Portugal and Eastern Europe. At the start of one beach day, couple of young German lads had decided that they needed to shout very loudly to each other across the full 2 metres that separated them… until an older German lady intervened, and left them in no doubt that this wasn’t going to continue. But this was an exception. The way these young groups behaved and considered other visitors to the beach and right across the city was hugely impressive.

On the Wednesday of our 2^nd week, we had learned of a mascleta that had been planned in Aldaia, a town just west of the city. Not unusual, and “typical of Valencia” (as the beach quiosco team explained to many people afterwards) but this mascleta was going to be the “most powerful mascleta in history” as claimed by the city council of Aldaia… all part of the celebrations of Clavaris del Crist 2025.

We heard the familiar rumblings of the mascleta begin, develop, grow more intense. Some of the sunbed team had hands in the air to celebrate the glorious noise like we’ve all done during Fallas, and the mascleta’s power got people’s attention on the beach.

Then we noticed our 2 young beach-goer neighbours. These 2 young women had reacted to this distant noise with genuine horror, and we realized that if you didn’t know what this was, it sounded like something very bad was happening. They had their hands to their faces and were genuinely scared, almost in tears.

I told them it was OK. It was fireworks, it was a mascleta, it was what they do around here, and they must see one next time they can come back to Valencia, especially if they can come back for Fallas. But I don’t think they will.

 

That mascleta was 12km away from where we were sitting, and it provoked reactions like that.

 

Despite its charms, the beach isn’t Valencia… there is so much more. To meet and interact with people right across the city, from our street, through our barrio and into the streets that lead to the delightful Jardin del Turia. Across the bridges and into the Barrio del Carmen, Paseo de la Alameda, Porta de la Mar, Carrer de Colón, Carrer de la Pau (although the castellano name Calle la Paz suits this elegant avenue much better) there are too many fascinating streets and districts to mention, and definitely too many to visit in a 2-week holiday.

 

Our neighbours in the next apartment have a new dog. We shared the lift, but I didn’t want to get into a conversation about new dog replacing old dog… these things are sensitive. New dog is very cute, the elegant elderly lady neighbour is always very pleasant, and her elderly husband is still grumpy and smokes his cigar in the lift. But you know they are good people.

 

We pass the local cafés filled with those with whom we share the barrio. The barrio is changing, and it’s clear that immigration and population change are creating a genuinely positive diversity*** in La Saïdia and across the city. New apartments on Carrer de Salvador Giner have nudged the local bars into refurbishment and expansion, and there are new shops and businesses there, in a part of town that had seemed to suffer from being little more than a route into the Barrio del Carmen.

 

In the Barrio del Carmen, it’s hot and it’s busy. Café Sant Jaume remains the undisputed people-watching epicenter of the world, as the visitors and locals head into the barrio from the northern part of town as we did, or pour down Carrer dels Cavallers, or move up from the area of the Llotja de la Seda and the Mercat Central.

As ever, toda la vida humana está aquí. Affluent visitors from all over the world down Agua de Valencia and Aperol Spritz by the gallon… at the same time, down at Café Lisboa, a street guy tries to steal food from the tables****. An ugly confrontation with the staff is narrowly avoided as he reacts aggressively to them, but dashes away down an alley. Our polarized world is reflected in the melting pot of the Barrio del Carmen.

If you want to find everyday city life (and that’s what we originally signed up for after all) and you want to find the life that regular Valencians live from day to day, you can do no better than a) the supermarket and b) the metro.

 

Visiting the supermarkets on a regular basis, you would encounter some characters. On most mornings, we would see a pair of middle-aged Spanish women, each with the ubiquitous wheeled shopper bag. These women are not unique to that supermarket… they will be replicated in every supermarket in Spain and beyond.

 

You might say that they are robust specimens. Their constant expression is one of disapproval. Nothing appears to be to their liking, and everything is wrong because they say it’s wrong. On the very rare occasion that they struggle to find anything that’s wrong within the confines of the supermarket, they will describe at some length to the staff (and anyone else who is misguided enough to engage with them) about some things that are wrong immediately outside the supermarket. I’m going to call them Las Hermanas de la Desaprobación (but not to their faces). If a quiet life is your thing… give them a wide berth.

The elderly in Spanish supermarkets are an endearing bunch. As couples or singles, they plot their way round the aisles, they look for bargains, they look for quality, they look for staples, they look for treats, they take their time. If you get a little impatient, just remind yourself (especially if you’re me) that you’re not too far behind them when it comes to the relentless passage of time.

 

They’re an open book, in an unashamed kind of a way. They’ll place all the ingredients for their evening meal onto the checkout belt, and you know precisely what they’re going to have to eat. You know that the key ingredients have been selected with care. They’ll produce vouchers at the till, and they’ll fiddle about with cash like older people do, but it’s fine. They’ve earned the right to take their time… and no tenemos prisa.

 

The metro can be a rich source of encounters with some local characters. One Sunday morning, an elderly guy shuffled towards me at the Sagunt parada. He brandished a can of beer in one hand, and a travel card in the other. I didn’t understand his first request, although it was apparent that he needed some sort of help with the travel card, but was more than capable of dealing with the beer himself. It was hard to decide if he’d started drinking early, or just continued through from sabado.

 

Some travel on the Valencia Metro is free on Sundays, so my first attempt to help was: “es gratis los domingos”. Somewhere between my poor pronunciation and his poor hearing/inebriation, this opening effort failed poorly.

 

He came back at me with: “tengo dos viajes” (I think) and tried to cram his travel card into the wrong slot in the wrong ticket machine. I asked if he wanted to recharge his travel card, but this conversation was going nowhere. My poor Spanish and his Amstel consumption were an ineffective combination, and I was forced to leave him with a default opt-out that I try to avoid: “Lo siento, pero no entiendo”... although it was true. I hope he got to where he needed to be.

 

One hot afternoon on the way back from the beach, 3 people struggled onto the tranvia carrying some sort of kitchen appliance (perhaps a small oven) and dropped it indelicately onto the floor of the carriage, retreating to the seats immediately behind the driver’s glass-partitioned capsule.

 

When most of the passengers seated in that area then immediately got up and moved towards us, I began to suspect (already knew) that the effort of dragging that appliance to the parade had defeated the best efforts of the groups’ most recent application of deodorant. Which may not have been today.

 

I’ll be honest, I could smell them when they got on, and I could still smell them then, from 10 metres away. It was comical to see passengers get on to the carriage, go towards the seats close to the group, and do an abrupt about-turn when their noses did their work.

 

The group must have been nearing their stop, so moved closer to us and stood around their precious appliance, ready to lift. I was amused to notice one of them, in the middle of an irritable exchange with her 2 friends, check her armpits with that (not very subtle) tilt of the head towards the offending area, and a slight lift of the elbow.

 

At that moment, I am 100% sure that 20 or more other passengers desperately wanted to shout (in the language of their choice): “for fuck’s sake love, I can smell you from here!”, but that would not have helped.

 

A dreadlocked guy, travelling alone, furtively opening the tranvia doors and peering down every platform at every stop. We couldn’t help but notice this, and assumed that he was checking for ticket inspectors, until another guy joined him. The second guy had the demeanor of a big brother, advisor, a mentor perhaps. Their heavily accented English revealed that our furtive guy was acutely afraid of arrest due to immigration issues, and the “mentor” tried to reassure… “maybe, but that will be weeks, months, maybe years away… this is not Senegal.”

 

I can’t imagine what these poor people have to endure, just to find a life worth living.

 

We connected with the places and people that have become familiar… part of what is a true second home. Our favourite paella waiter remembered us again, and yet again enhanced our experience with his warmth and humour. Our Italian restaurateur friend plied us with the usual great food, and with mistela (visit #1) and limoncello (visit #2) and it was good to see his restaurant busy on our last evening... and as ever, we were welcomed at our local cafés.

Of course, there is change in the barrio and the city, and the vast majority of that change is for the better. We have new and refreshed cafés and bars, we have cleaner streets and refurbished buildings, we have an ever-diversifying population.

 

With 30-35º most days (although often humid in the evenings) we got lucky with the weather, where other parts of Spain suffered unbearable heat and serious wildfires. That extreme heat was to arrive in Valencia after we left… as I write this back in the UK, it’s pushing 40º in Valencia.

 

The apartment has a busy future. Family will be there to stay for a few weeks in September, then new tenants from Italy in the months before navidad. The community are proposing improvements to the ground floor to improve access to the lift, which will be costly for us all if approved. Whether in Valencia or the UK however, I’m constantly reassured by the Junta de la Communidad***** who make decisions on the building on behalf of all residents. All will be well.

As I said to our Italian friend as we left, “volveremos para Año Nuevo… o Fallas… o Semana Santa… no sé.

We don’t know when we’ll be back, but we know that all the humans are there, making it better and better.

 

 

*There is no doubt that this whole chaotic event is much safer than it looks and feels! 

**If you are not of my vintage, you may need Google's help here. Other search engines are available.

*** This is worth emphasising in a world where immigration is an ugly word for too many people.

**** This is rare, but makes my point all the same. 

***** The committee of apartment owners who meet regularly to agree on all matters that affect life in the building.

Dedicated to Greg, who was the original inspiration behind the well-worn phrase "they don't make them like that any more". RIP.