Weekend in Valencia

Monday, January 30, 2023 - As planned, late in the afternoon on Saturday - a little too late for good photography, as it turned out - we set off for Jardi de Montforte. Our idea was to cycle there and walk back. We went to the Valenbisi station on Gran Via, but once again, it had lost Internet connectivity, shutting it down, at least for users like Karen with Mobilis cards. We will in future avoid it. We walked down Gran Via to Turia, picked up bikes there and rode the rest of the way.

Jardi de Montforte is a neo-classical style formal garden, designed and built in the mid-19th century by the architect Sebastián Monleón Estellés. It was commissioned by Don Juan Bautista Romero Almenar, Marqués de San Juan who had recently purchased the land, an old orchard just outside the city’s walls, from another nobleman. The gardens later came into the hands of a relative by marriage named Montforte - hence the modern name. 

It has been city property and open to the public since the 1970s. It’s managed, we noticed, by the municipal department responsible for marriage licenses and records. I wonder if that’s because it’s a popular venue for weddings, wedding photography and receptions, which it appears to be.

On this day, there was no wedding activity but there were three different photo shoots underway. When we went in the main entrance, Karen exclaimed, “Oh, look at the pretties!” There in the entryway courtyard were a mother and, I’m assuming, her two children posing in full Fallas finery. The women and girls wear vaguely 18th century dresses, made of beautifully embroidered fabrics held out by crinolines, and often lace aprons. They have their hair done in elaborate coiffures with combs and pinned-up coils on the sides of their heads that remind me of pictures we saw of Mayan women in Mexico. The dresses cost a fortune - according to the Hereditas website between €2,000 and €12,000! 

The men also wear 18th-century-inspired garb: knee britches, hose and puffy shirts, usually with a brightly-striped blanket over one shoulder. They play a distant second fiddle to the women, though. As we arrived, the photo shoot in the courtyard was just finishing up. The photographer asked the young boy to step aside while he took some shots of his mother and sister. I had no time to adjust camera settings but grabbed a quick shot at the same time. And then they were gone.

There was another party shooting Fallas finery in another part of the garden - but they also broke up just before I could horn in. And a third group was photographing a model in what looked like a party dress.

It’s a peaceful place with lots of neo-classical statuary, fountains, pools, neatly trimmed shrubberies and quiet corners with benches. There were a few people besides the photogs and models enjoying the place - a couple snogging in the back corner, a fellow sitting on a bench reading - but it was a bit cool for Valencians to think of hanging around in a garden, and the sun was pretty much gone behind the buildings by the time we got there. I’m sure it’s a very popular place in the summer when it’s blisteringly hot here.

There are also, despite the time of year, some quite spectacular floral displays, including climbing vines and clumps of birds of paradise. Shots of the latter I managed to translate into one of the only multiple exposures I’ve tried here that sort of works.

We picked up bikes nearby and rode part way home, then walked the rest of the way.

*

Sunday is IVAM day in Valencia for us. We missed last Sunday - can’t remember why - but went yesterday. It was the coolest day yet, I think - only got up to 9C. We walked through the centre and Carmen to get there, with the idea we could cycle back. I’d prepped our mid-afternoon main meal ahead of time so all I had to do was bake the store-bought tortilla a little and boil some veg when we got home. We set out a little before 2.

I had thought we would take in an exhibit by Asger Jorn (1914–1973), a Danish expressionist painter, which is advertised with a giant banner on the wall outside the museum. What I failed to notice was that the exhibit doesn’t start until February, just before we leave. So we went into another,  Zero and Postwar Art in Europe. 

Heinz Mack, White Dynamic Structure on Black, 1962

Gerhard von Ravenitz, Kinetic Relief, 1965

This one is about the largely forgotten European artists who reacted against the expressionist art that had dominated the scene before the war. They advocated a kind of minimalism and anonymity, often forming collectives, even foregoing individual attribution of their works in some cases. It started in Germany - the Zero group - and eventually spread to allied groups in France, Italy and Spain.

Osker Holweck, 9.VIII.58, 1958

Walter Leblanc, Twisted String 40F X 180, 1962

The style of art seemed familiar, even if the artists’ names for the most part were not. The only name I recognized was the Swiss-French Jean Tinguely. They weren’t much interested in colour - an obvious reaction to the colour-overload of many expressionists. They were interested in using found materials - string, bolt heads, industrial scrap, etc. - and collage and mixed media. And they were interested in movement, both creating the illusion of movement in static compositions and experimenting with mobiles and, late in the movement, digital and video technologies.

Gruppo No - esecuzione Bissi e Landi, Untitled, 1964

Jean Tinguely, Méta-matic no. 6, 1959

Karen and I were a little dubious when we read the opening description of the exhibit, but surprised ourselves by quite liking some of it. This, it occurs to me, was the avant garde art of our youth. Some of it was minimalist to the point of silliness, but some was quite engaging. The frequent absence of colour precludes it ever being among my favourite art styles, but it’s interesting at the very least.

We picked up bikes right outside the museum and cycled home along Guillem de Castro and Xativa. Karen for the first time took the lead, which is a much better way for us to do it. It means I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder to check she’s still with me, and she can set a pace that doesn’t over-extend her wonky knees.

Dog days

Saturday, January 28 - Not a lot to report for the last few days. The weather has been about average for this time of year in Valencia - highs in the low to mid-teens, lots of sun, and blessedly little wind, which makes it feel warmer than it actually is. 

I ran on Thursday, the usual route: down to Turia Park and back. Yesterday, it was a fast walk, also the now customary route: through Central Park, over the tracks and back around Estacion del Norte. And then today, another run. I think I’ve now worked back up to 5K, by lengthening the distance I run towards the centre in Turia Park.

On Thursday, we didn’t do much. Karen remembers - or thinks she remembers - that we walked down to Turia Park and biked back or part way back, or the other way around. Maybe, but I have no clear memory of this. I do remember thinking about going out again in the evening and rejecting the idea. So who knows? This is why we have to do stuff every day - otherwise, the days just run together.

Yesterday, we walked over to Carmen and had a cheap lunch at a place Shelley Boyes had recommended, L’Express. It’s a lunch spot for working folks, not in the least fancy, but good value. Ten euros for three courses and a drink - the sort of prices we saw six or seven years ago. We both had honey ribs for mains, served with oven-fried potatoes. Judging by what we could see of other tables around the room, we were probably the only gringos there - and got the boniest, least meaty servings of the ribs. 

I had a very nice, and filling, lentil soup for starters. Karen had a mini-paella dish, which I would order another time if we went there and it was on the menu. For dessert, I had something they called chocolate cake, but was in fact chocolate pudding. It was tasty, but I didn’t finish it as it almost certainly had dairy in it. The wine was okay, not as good as in the other places we’ve eaten, but perfectly drinkable. The total bill came to just over CDN$30.

Would we go back there? Maybe not. I had tummy issues that night, which, in fairness, may have had nothing to do with the food - but, equally, might have.

We biked home.

Later in the afternoon, we walked over to Central Park. We strolled a bit, and Karen sat in the sun briefly reading her book while I took pictures. The pictures - of rippling water, flowers and leaves - were meant to be fodder for some of the experiments in multi-exposure images that I was working on before we left home. So far, they have yielded only images of doubtful merit.

Waterfall

Roses

After I’d dropped Karen off at home, I went out again and biked to MuVIM. I walked back into the neighbourhood behind the museum. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it may be considered part of a barrio shown on maps as Extramurs - which I’m assuming means “outside the walls” - although this area would not have been outside the city’s medieval walls. In any case, it has been good hunting grounds for street art in the past  - and continues to be. 

I was struck by the massive scale of some of these murals. They could not have been created on the fly; the artists must have had the permission of the city and/or property owners, and taken a long time over them. The one of the woman holding grapes. covers the end of a building overlooking neighbourhood garden allotments.

From there, I wandered, via the Central Market, into Carmen, by which time the street lamps were lit and the sky light was fading fast. A half an hour wandering there, finishing at Torre del Quart, then a bike ride home along Guillem de Castro and Xativa. 

Torre del Quart

We’re watching a couple of Netflix/Prime series right now, both of which we weren’t sure about to begin with, but have grown to appreciate. 

The one is Chilean, the title in English translated as 42 Days of Darkness. (I'm no linguist, but I would question the translation - oscuridad means quite a few other things, including obscurity, murk, gloom, etc.) It’s about a woman who goes missing, a wife and mother of two daughters, living in a gated community outside a city that is not Santiago. The 42 days are the days she remains missing, but the series continues for two more episodes after the 42 days are up. The characters all seem very real, including the sister who desperately searches for the missing woman, the incompetent police and the discredited lawyer and his private detective buddies who are looking for a way to cash in on the case and win some glory for solving it. Nothing turns out as anyone - including us - expects.

The other is one I’ve already mentioned, Outer Range, a sci-fi/fantasy set in Wyoming ranching country. It is totally original, and oddly convincing. Josh Brolin stars. We feared it would be another Lost or Manifest, two idiotic, long-running American sci-fi series that in the end made no sense. This is orders of magnitude better. So far. The world is very convincingly built, the writing and acting are pretty good and the characters are well drawn and believable - well, as believable as they can be given the sci-fi premise.

This afternoon, we’re going to bike over to a little ornamental garden on the other side of the Turia, the Jardí de Montfort. Maybe we’ll sit and read if there’s any sun left. 

Bellas Artes

The lesson about needing to authorize my Metro card to use with Valenbisi as a backup when my phone isn’t working was learned yesterday (Monday) morning, but executing proved difficult - again. When I went to the station around the corner and tried to authorize the card, Valenbisi suggested I’d put in my phone number and/or PIN wrongly and wouldn’t authorize it - even though, as far as I could see, everything was correct. I guess I’ll have to call their help line again.

We hung around the apartment most of the day. Karen didn’t get out at all, spent her day painting and reading. It was another cool day by Valencian standards, with a high of only 8C, but sunny and dead still. 

I decided to go out again in search of after-dark photo ops about 6 pm. That’s when I ran into the problem with the Valenbisi station not wanting to authorize my transit card. The good news: this time, my phone worked just fine for getting a bike. 

I cycled over to the Central Market, dropped the bike and walked into Carmen. I spent an hour wandering aimlessly up and down the narrow streets, down little alleys, into dark squares.

It’s funny, I never feel unsafe there, despite it looking a little grotty in places. I’d feel less safe a few blocks from home in London, Ontario at that time of day. I might feel differently at one o’clock in the morning here, but at this time of day, although it’s dark, the shops are still open and people, including single women and families with children, are out and about. People are sitting outside at the cafes and restaurants. (Yes, despite the “cold.”) Safe as houses.

I walked as far as Plaza de Carmen, then worked my way back to the centre by a zig-zag route. I ended up taking way too many pictures of narrow, lamplit cobbled streets with street art and graffiti on the walls. Only a small sampling here (on the assumption that anybody reading this is probably already tired of my obsession with street art and night scenes.)

When I got back to the Market and tried to get a bike, the Valenbisi app said I didn’t have Internet connectivity. Again. Grrrr! I started walking and tried again at the next station, by which time my phone was connecting again, and I was able to get a bike. 

*

Today (Wednesday), I took a morning off from exercise. Karen and I set out a little after noon to walk over to the Museum of Fine Arts, Valencia’s museum of historical art. It’s a good long walk. We went down the Gran Via to Turia park and along it for a kilometre and a half or so to the edge of the Royal Gardens. The museum is on the far edge of the gardens. It took over 45 minutes altogether. 

Crossing the Bridge of Flowers

We usually go to this museum at least once a trip. The permanent collection has some great pieces, although there is also a lot of dross. There rarely are temporary exhibitions, but there was one today. Anima is a show about portraiture, featuring works from the museum’s own collection. Most, I’m guessing, are not generally on display, although some appeared to be fairly recent acquisitions. It was an interesting exhibition, well curated, with some strong works, but lacked any real masterpieces.

Jacob Jordaens, Lady, Jester and Cat

Jose Benilliure Ortiz, self-portrait

Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta,
Portrait of a lady in black

Jacob Jordaens was a 17th century Flemish painter. I'd never heard of him. Jose Benilliure Ortiz was part of a prominent Valencian art family of the late 19th and early 20th century, some of whom attained international fame. Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta was a Spanish realist painter of the late 19th century.

We started our visit by exploring the re-configured entrance rotunda, which includes some pieces we didn’t remember. Everything seems to be a little better displayed too. Maybe they’ve improved the artificial lighting? The ticket booth is also now in the middle of the rotunda instead of just inside the door.

We spent some time looking at the mediaeval and early renaissance stuff on the ground floor as well. This is one place where the museum’s collection really shines. It includes some amazing stuff, including gilded 14th and 15th century altarpieces. We sometimes don't have a lot of patience for old religious subjects, but somehow they engaged us this day.

Unidentified early 15th century altarpiece

Joan Reixac, St James and St Giles Abadt

Portrait of unknown gentleman by Sandro Botticelli

The piece de resistance, though, is - or was - a triptych by Hironimus Bosch, the Triptych of Insults, illustrating the scourging of Christ after he’s condemned by Pontius Pilate. This, to my mind, is the best piece in the museum, and one of my favourite paintings of all time. The last time we came, back in 2020, I was sorely disappointed to find the triptych missing. Apparently it was out for restoration because it’s now back and more amazing than ever. I particularly love the way Christ engages with the viewer, wearing an expression that says, “Do you believe what these assholes are doing?” He’s surrounded by a rogue’s gallery of beautifully drawn and painted characters, harassing and abusing the poor man - er, god. Here’s the way it looks on the wall, and a closer view of the central panel.

We spent a little over an hour and then started for home. Our plan was to ride bikes at least part of the way, but our ongoing issues with Valenbisi continued. This time, Karen’s card wouldn’t work. We got the same message we had before, that her account was blocked because there had been too many failed attempts to log in - this despite the fact we had changed her PIN to a new one the day before yesterday. We ended up walking all the way home.

I called Valenbisi’s generally excellent help line - which has English-speaking operators - and finally got to the bottom of it. The problem with authorizing my card and logging in with Karen’s were both the result of two factors. One, only some stations can authorize Mobilis cards for use with Valenbisi - but nobody had told us this. The closest station to us is one that doesn’t allow authorization of transit cards, and that's where I'd tried. And then we were missing an essential step in changing the PIN on Karen’s card after her account was first blocked. The guy I got on the phone explained it all in fluent, barely-accented English. I went out and successfully set up both cards. So now, even if my phone doesn’t have Internet, I can still get a bike using the card. And Karen’s card is working again. Fingers crossed.

Bike woes

I ran Sunday morning (January 22), my now usual route down to Turia park and back. It was cool again, about 11C, but sunny and still. Karen worked on her art on and off through the morning, and we had our usual mid-afternoon main meal.

Later in the afternoon, we had intended to go to IVAM, the modern art museum. We have three Sundays (the day when entry at IVAM is free) before we leave and there are still three (or four?) exhibits we haven’t seen yet. My plan had been to do one exhibit per Sunday throughout our stay here.

The museum is a 20-minutes-or-so bike ride away. But we had Valenbisi woes again. First of all, there weren’t many bikes in the neighbourhood. The nearest stations were reporting one or none. We had to walk over to a station on Calle de Peris y Valero, five or six blocks away. Karen tried to log in with her card, but was told her account was blocked because there had been too many failed attempts to log in. She insists she only flubbed entering the PIN once, but it wouldn’t let her in. On the off-chance it was a malfunction at that station we walked to the next nearest and tried there: same message. We would have to reset her PIN by logging into her account in a web browser.

I doubted Karen was up for the 40-minute walk to IVAM (and 40 minutes back) - and I wasn’t really up for it myself - so suggested we change our plan and go to MuVIM instead. It's much nearer, just on the edge of the historic city centre - and also free on Sunday. So that’s what we did.

MuVIM is an interesting, probably unique, institution. The acronym stands for (when translated to English) the Valencian Museum of the Enlightenment and Modernity. But in Spanish, it’s called El Museo Valenciano de la Ilustración y de la Modernidad. “Ilustración” means both illustration and enlightenment in Spanish. I’m still not clear on the etymological connection between those two concepts, but the museum definitely has as part of its brief exploring illustration and design as art. The exhibits we saw there yesterday were example. 

But at the same time, the entire third level of the museum is given over to an elaborate multi-room permanent exhibition about the history of…the Age of Enlightenment. It features artefacts, reproductions, animatronic tableaus and sometimes live costumed actors. You walk through and listen to pre-recorded commentary that automatically plays from loudspeakers when you enter a room. It’s quite wild. Sort of a Disneyland attraction for history nerds. We did it the first year we stayed in Valencia.

Yesterday, we looked at four exhibits. The big one, the one they’re promoting most, is called Design + Health. The curatorial notes, which were not available in English and which I was only able to translate after we got home, begin, “Design by itself can't cure anything, but neither can a vaccine if we don't have a syringe to inject it with. Designing it is part of the solution, it is not an added value, it is essential in the development of any innovation, for the social good.” 

The displays, in separate little pods devoted to different areas of healthcare, include design drawings, prototypes and products. Without English labelling, they didn’t mean a lot to us. And we lacked the energy or, to be honest, the motivation to puzzle out the Spanish. Some looked mildly interesting, others not so much.

The exhibit also included these two walls of small posters. The one, logically enough, is about Covid. I don’t understand how the other, seemingly posters protesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fit with the theme. But never mind. And I’m not sure if the posters were created especially for this exhibit by one person or were produced independently. They all appear to be in a similar style and format. Oddly, many, or most, are in English.

Another exhibit, one of the permanent displays, is about an 18th century priest who became obsessed with mapping Valencia. It includes reproductions of his and other early maps, and a large scale model of the city based on his map. The commentary, thankfully, was in English as well as the usual Valenciano and Spanish. The model includes what the commentary claims is every building pictured in the original map, hand carved by accredited miniaturists. (How do you get that kind of accreditation, I wonder?)

Another small exhibit, not even mentioned at the museum’s website for some reason,  is about the local sculptor Joan Martí who was responsible for the four “guardians,” the four crouching winged statues - part-human, part-bird, part-wildcat - that stand at each end of the Bridge of the Realm near the City of Arts and Sciences. I’ve always loved those statues, which are often referred to as gargoyles but are meant to be forbidding only to enemies of the realm. I’ve often photographed them (and can’t promise I won’t again). This exhibit was about Martí’s creative process and included design drawings and models, many related to the guardians statues, but other work as well. 

Interestingly, I later read a 2014 article in El Mundo, interviewing the bridge’s architect, Salvador Monleón. He claims the guardians, in concept at least, were part of his original design for the bridge. Martí won a competition to execute that design. There is a whiff in this article of professional noses being out of joint. Martí, who died in 2004, seems to have gotten all the credit for creating these beloved statues, and Monleón seems to be trying to retake some of it. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding.

Architect's drawings for Pont de Regne, showing guardians

The final exhibit on the day’s agenda was another small one in an annex outside the main building. It featured work by Cuqui Guillén, a Valencian artist who figured prominently in something called “neokitsch” or “Valencian Pop,” an art movement of the 1990s. The works on show are mostly large oil paintings in a…well, a kind of kitschy style, but oddly interesting. The exhibit is titled A Subversive Temptation. The curator argues that although the paintings are of stereotyped, seemingly exploitive images of women, the way they’re done subverts this and they actually carry a strong feminist message. I could sort of see what she meant. 

*

On Monday, I did a fast walk in the morning - the usual route through Central Park, over the pedestrian rail overpass, up to Bailen Metro stop and through the tunnel back to Ruzafa. Most of the rest of the day was given over to reading, puzzling, blogging, painting (Karen). 

Karen was intrigued by my idea of viewing the lights in the city so we held off going out until almost six. We wandered through the centre and over into the old city. We didn’t hit on any really interesting streets, though, and didn’t get as far as Carmen, where things are a little more lively and interesting. We came back by the cathedral and city hall, where there were lots of lights. I don’t think Karen was impressed with my route. 

Plaza de Rodrigo Botet

But I still managed to get a couple of shots I like. It’s astonishing what modern digital SLRs can do in low light. The anti-shake, or image stabilization technology allows me to shoot handheld at very slow shutter speeds - as slow as an eighth of a second (yes, that’s slow) - and still get acceptably sharp images. The rule of thumb in pre-digital days was that you couldn’t shoot handheld at shutter speeds slower than a 60th of a second.

And shooting at ISO 800 - which is about twice as high a light sensitivity as ASA400 film - gives me images that are a little bit grainy/noisy, but I can mitigate that with a Photoshop plugin I have. Shooting on ASA400 film produced much grainier images, and there was nothing much you could do to make them appear less grainy.

*

This morning (Tuesday), I ran. I tried a new route, similar to one I walked last week. I must have taken a wrong turn at some point - or didn’t turn when I should have - and ended up at the Turia, but quite a bit further from home, further south, than I’d intended. I thought, that’s fine, I’ll ride back. But when I got to the first Valenbisi station and tried to borrow a bike, the app told me I didn’t have any Internet connectivity. 

This is the third time this has happened now. Three UK partners with Movistar in Spain, which is a big multinational provider. I thought European mobile services were super reliable, but apparently not. The upshot was, I had to walk back. Even walking fast, I was cold. It was mostly in the shade and I was quite sweaty from the run. Lesson learned. I’ll get my Metro card set up to use with Valenbisi as a backup.

That's all for now. Time to make dinner...