Sleeping at the hostel in Valencia was not so straightforward. There were eight of us in the room, in four bunk beds, all keeping slightly different hours, and it was a bit like I imagine it must be living in a submarine or even on a Roman galley. Added to which there was a large contingent of Dutch school children who were not afraid of getting exuberant, especially after returning from their nocturnal explorations from about 11pm onwards. At one point, approaching 2am, I had just resolved to get out of bed and go down to ask them to calm down a bit when a group of girls started singing some luscious melodies. I didn't have the heart to interrupt them and soon enough tranquility prevailed. But it meant a fairly late start the next morning.
Having trawled the guide books I settled on a visit to the Museum of contemporary art, in the North of the town. This meant walking through the oldest part of town which was narrow and winding and full of atmosphere. The closer I came to the gallery the more alternative and faintly exciting the atmosphere became.
The gallery was immense and free to get in. It was running six separate exhibitions in six separate rooms. As luck would have it one of them displayed the work of a Spanish textile weaver who emulated the creations of Amazigh weavers from the Atlas mountains of North Africa, the very place I was heading to. I took some photos to send home to my friend Diane who is also involved in a project to bring this cultural stream into greater awareness: https://www.moiradianewood.com/rhythm-and-ritual-project
Another of the rooms was devoted to the work of a Valencian impressionist painter of whom I had never heard before, Ignacio Pinazo. I found his work enthralling, a lot of it very sparingly painted onto plain wooden background, depicting every day scenes of Spanish life in the late 19th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Pinazo_Camarlench
The gallery was patrolled by a small army of security guards, some of them armed with pistols, which I found very intimidating, and in stark contrast to the gallery at Villafarmes which was manned only by two young women and probably housed works of twice or three times the value. Such, I guess, are the complications of urban living.
In the evening I had time to see the new documentary film Moonage Daydream about the life of David Bowie which was showing at a cinema in town. Nice to see a movie house full of people for a change, who were generous enough and moved to give a round of applause at the end. What a time in history it is to be alive.
Downtown Valencia.
The next stage of the journey was to the Mediterranean port of Denia, around 100km further down the coast. I split this into a two day journey and so next morning I set out for the San Vicente campsite at Xeraco. I was pleased that the route took me closer to the docklands of Valencia as I like to be impressed by the audacity and the scale of modern trade and industry.
Maybe I'm not alone in this feeling as I came across a row of cafes and restaurants overlooking the docklands.
On the south side of Valencia there's a large salt water lake, which is at the centre of a wetland nature reserve called L'Albufera. An absolutely gorgeous place to cycle through and teeming with bird life. And tortoises, apparently, although I didn't see any, there were signs up asking visitors to be careful not to tread on them.
As soon as we were out of the national park the competition resumed between agricultural and residential land use. Being as the climate is so warm and there's no shortage of water here, there is a huge variety of intensively grown crops, including rice, outdoors, and everything you can think of under glass, or polythene. Here you can see how just across the street are some of the many thousands of holiday apartments that smother the coast in this part of Spain in varying densities.
The ghost of Jane Fonda lives among some of them, for those who are old enough to know!
And the roadside flowers also took on an added sophistication.
But occasionally there were signs that not every enterprise was blessed with success.
At times the landscape reminded me of the marshes of the Camargue in southern France, a similar coastal wetland traditionally associated with providing horses and bulls for the ring, so I was not surprised when I chanced upon this little herd, wedged between the buildings and the crops. The legacy of an age that seems to be slowly disappearing in this part of Spain.
Occasionally there would appear a striking view full of intense colours and incidental figures that seemed to come straight from the hand of Salvador Dali. Traveling in the intense sunlight of this coastal region it's not difficult to sense from where his inspirations came.
And as if to echo that sentiment, here at the entrance to one of the towns close to Denia, is a figure that could well have evolved from one of his paintings.
My friend Felix lives in Reading and his father, who owned a house in the commune of La Xara 4 miles outside Denia, died about ten weeks ago. Felix invited me to join him at the villa while he sorted out some of his dad's affairs, in the company of his father's second wife Ana, who is not his mother. Felix had been tracking my position on Google maps and was waiting for me on the road outside the house with this banner
And he surprised me by making this video of my arrival
We don't generally spend a lot of time together but Felix and I have been friends for a long time, whenever we meet we pick up very quickly from where we left off. He has a big, big heart and has supported and encouraged me in just about everything I do, but especially on this fund raising journey. Whenever a person dies there is always a lot to cope with, so I was very happy to be able to offer him some support in return.
Orange trees in the garden
