Doom and Gloom and the Blue Hour

2019 Feb 12 Tuesday

Kitty at Univ. Valencia

We set out to do museums today, and started with the Museu de Patriarca (talk about a redundant name!). I was excited to see a Caravaggio in their collection, but ended up being most charmed (in that Christian Gothic way) by El Greco and amazing 15c Flemish tapestries in the small chapel. 

The museum itself was an experience. You step through an ancient threshold from the bright sunlight into a dark little antechamber where a dignified older man in a stunning jacket presides. We pay our 6 Euros as directed and the man in the coat gets up and leads us into a courtyard through a set of massive doors. I’m delighted that I am able to easily translate the information he offers on the Renaissance courtyard with its Carrera Marble and statue of a Valencian dignitary (true, his spiel involved a lot of numbers and obvious contexts, but it was still good for my ego to manage extended translation).

15c Flemish Tapestries, Museu Patriarca

El Greco

Later in the day Kitty asks me “What is the Spanish word for ‘no?’” and I realize she has a far longer way to go than I towards mastery. I do want to develop my ability in Spanish. I regret all those days in 8^th grade I played no attention to Señor Andrés, and hope to have the will to pick up an AB Tech course or something when we get home.

We move on to a the adjacent plaça following our tour. We’d planned to do a second museum before lunch (it’s now about 12:30) but decide to just scope out a recommended restaurant that seems to be just around the corner. 

Bar Damas was on the list our hosts left as a cheap, family-run place. It had a nice little terrace, and I approached to ask about making reservations for 2:00. Instead, an energetic little man approaches me (no English) and runs right over my “reserva” mutterings to swoop us upstairs. Kitty says “I guess we’re eating now” and we decide that discretion is the better part of valor and go along with his plan. He leads us through the bar, through a small kitchen and upstairs to an abysmally decorated empty room with Spanish TV in the corner. 

Bar Las Damas

Now at home we likely would have found some space for assertion as we were in a place we didn’t want to be in and getting ready to pay money for an uncertain outcome. Then again, sometimes the travel gods throw you these opportunities, and to resist may lead away from the memorable, unexpected experiences we treasure while on vacation. We decide to roll with it and stay in the tacky room. The cheap (9.50 EUR) menu attracts us. Well, the décor did not improve. The news was all about the trial of Catalan politicians and the developing riots in BCN. The food was awful. (My calamari were good -so I don't totally agree with Lorena on this one)   We were horribly overcharged for wine (4 EUR for about ¼ of a normal glass). This was clearly one of those times when the travel gods decided we’d had too much fortune and needed a reality check. We wonder what kinds of experiences our hosts had to move them to put this place on their list? It’s also a good lesson in why you need to have language competence and powers of assertion when traveling, especially when the person you are dealing with has their own agenda and makes no effort to bridge the gap. 

Featured Arroz at Bar Las Damas

Luckily, though, these occurrences are rare. My little bit of Spanish typically suffices. And now Kitty knows how to say “no” in Spanish. We have missed the other museum, so head across town to find the other spot on our list under construction. We retreat to our apartment and decide to read for the remainder of the afternoon and venture out at night.

Courtyard of Museu de Patriarca

Hard to believe we’ve been here for 10 days and have not been out at night. It’s just suited us to get out early in the morning and walk and walk and walk to the point of exhaustion and eat inside every evening. I’ve loved the sunsets from our terrace. Tonight, we head out about 5:00 to Café Las Horas, the number one place on everyone’s list for “Agua de Valencia.” That drink is a beefed-up version of a Mimosa (a bit of gin and vodka completes the brew). We find the bar is closed for vacation, so then head over to the second recommended place, Bar Sant Juames. We’ve gone by this place a couple of times before and it’s always been crowded as it’s wonderfully situated along a pedestrian street. This evening it’s cool so only one or two tables outside are taken. We settle in. Kitty has her white wine and I try the local drink, which is perfect on a cool evening and must be even better on a hot day.

Agua de Valencia at San Jaume

I’ve got my eye on the sky as I want to get some night shots at the blue hour and it looks as though we have more time, so we go down the road to another bar, Bar Los Picapiedra. They are just opening. The woman is Dutch and she (of course) has excellent English. She tells us her story of how she and her boyfriend opened this business two months ago. As we are there the place begins to fill up. Kitty says that if I were to die right now, she would become a barfly and this bar would become her special place and my monument. I survive.

Kitty at Bar Los Picapiedre

I manage to extract Kitty from Los Picapiedra and lead us down to the main square where I take photos as the light in the sky changes from blue to green to dark blue. The city lights come on. There are a few minutes when I get pretty unobstructed photos despite the crowds. A couple of other photographers work steadily to get shots as the colors change so quickly and opportunities for open shots become fewer and fewer. It’s great fun for me to fulfill this goal—I’ve looked at photos of the city for months and this sequence of shots was top on my list for Valencia.

Plaça del Virgin

Back home we eat about 9:00 and the lasagna is even better. Asleep by midnight listening to “Dateline, White House” podcasts. I remain hungry for news from the home front even as I delight in being far from the shores of our national disfunction. I can’t tell at this point if things will ever return to a level near normalcy or if we are doomed. My sense as I listen to the never-ending stream of crime & corruption is that we will never be the same as a nation and that we’ve been permanently soiled by Trump and his enablers. In short, We Are Doomed.