The city of oranges, a dry river, and future-ville

El Palomar – Valencia – Moncofa, Spain

What do Valencia and Morocco have in common? Star Wars, of course. For people our age, we can pretty much tie anything to George Lucas’ space saga. Kind of like our kids and Harry Potter.

I’ve been thinking about this since we were in Morocco, but I never had a chance to fully develop the theme. That’s why I was happy this morning when Eduardo, our Valencia bike tour guide, told us that this big futuristic development park that Valencia invested in is featured in some new Star Wars spinoff. Lando? I’ve never heard of it – but it makes sense. The Valencia development place looks like Lando’s space station.

Okay, I’ll come back to Star Wars in a minute – but now that we’re talking about Valencia and their future development area I should finish that story . . .

It starts with a flood in 1954 or so. Horrible, once in a century flood. Large sections of the city were underwater. So what did the City do? They didn’t want to just wait for the next flood. Their solution? Build a new and improved riverbed – some five miles away from the original. I guess it has worked great. They had another huge rain event just last year. But because of the new river there was not nearly the same flooding.

Very cool. Good thinking.

(I need to divert this discussion for a moment as well. Like diverting the water – only easier, I guess. A while back I had mentioned that someone imported beavers into Patagonia. Reader Bill M saw that and thought maybe I was anti-beaver. He told me to read a book called Eager. It’s about beavers. Duh! Anyway, I guess there used to be lots of beavers in Eurasia as well – close cousins of our American friends – but they were all pretty much eradicated a long time ago – because of beaver hats I think. But the point is that the city probably could have just let beavers do their thing – build dams and all – and the City wouldn’t have had to dig a new river. I could go on and on about the beavers now . . . Turns out that beavers are pretty cool; great engineers. If you have a chance check out the book . . .)

But even without these dam building rodents, the story of Valencia gets way better.

Because now they had this old river bed running right through the center of the city – but with no water in it – because the water was diverted into the new river. What did the City do with this space? They created a huge linear park. Biking and walking paths. Recreational opportunities. Grassy areas and trees. And all of it far away from the hustle and bustle of the actual city – because, like the original river, the whole recreation area is well below grade. Better yet, there were already really cool bridges over the old river. They’re still in place – they just go over the bike paths and stuff now.

What a great re-use of an old asset!

But what does this have to do with Star Wars or the future development thing? Good question. I’m getting to it . . .

Well, in the late-‘90s the City decided that they should use some of the old riverbed land to create a cultural campus with scientific type buildings like a planetarium and an aquarium and stuff. I guess they found an architect who told them he could put together a design that they could build for like $300 Million Euros (do you use the dollar sign in this instance? Hard to know . . .). Actual total? More like $1.2 Billion Euros!

Woops.

But Eduardo says that everyone is so happy with the result that the price doesn’t matter.

And it is amazing for sure. Just like Valencia. Which I’ll get back to. But I figure I better finish on the Star Wars theme first . . .

Now, Morocco’s connection is less obvious – but maybe more important. I’m thinking that George Lucas for sure traveled in Morocco before creating the original trilogy (the prequels are absolutely horrible and an insult to the originals – so I prefer to pretend that they don’t exist at all). It’s not like Valencia with a specific future-center thing. No. It’s the overall feel of the place.

Old men looking very wise wandering around with hoods. Camels plodding through the sand like Imperial Walkers. Nomads in the desert areas. The medinas with all the little shops and different people hawking their wares. As Star Wars generation people, Diana and I couldn’t help feeling like Obi wan Kenobi and the force and stuff were inspired by this magical country . . .

Alright, now back to Valencia. I guess I really should have started with oranges. It’s what we think of when we hear the name.

And for good reason.

Biking into the city yesterday and out of the city today we wound through miles and miles of orange groves. Big oranges and little tangerines. Lots and lots of oranges. As many oranges here as there were olives and almonds in the mountains.

But we didn’t just admire the oranges. We felt obligated to try a few – purely for scientific reasons, of course.

I’ve always liked oranges. I mean, they’re not apples or anything. But they’re good. I’ll eat one if it’s in front of me . . .

But these oranges! So good. So sweet! So juicy!

I really loved the little tangerines. Diana? She likes the bigger oranges because they’re not as sweet. (I guess she’s getting more and more like her Mom – the famous Popo – who used to say about many things: “I don’t know . . . Too sweet . . .”)

If Valencia had nothing else going for it, the oranges alone would be enough to make it a great city. No wonder the Romans built their city and had a big outpost here.

Which gets me back into the rest of the Valencia story. They have their old town – which was originally built around 1300. They tore the walls down a few hundred years ago when the City outgrew those boundaries, but they kept most of the old houses and stuff. Really nice.

Below the old town? Like layers of sediment down . . . old Roman Ruins. Where the central square in the old Roman town was they have dug up the ruins and created an archeological museum. Pretty impressive. They even created a space where you can walk around above and look down through a fountain into the ruins below. So cool!

Then, when they tore the walls of the old city down they were forward-thinking enough to create a whole new section of town all down in a similar architectural style. City Hall is there, along with all the financial institutions. That part of town is super nice as well.

There are two other distinct pieces. The normal modern stuff – with tall steel and glass buildings – like Minneapolis and so many other downtowns. Finally, there’s the future-town area that we already discussed. Put all this together with the old riverbed linear park and you have a pretty special place.

Oh, I didn’t mention paella. This is their big dish. We tried to get it last night – but, of course, we mis-timed dinner – which is so easy to do around here – and ended up getting pizza surprise instead. Literally, you just say you want pizza and they give you whatever they feel like giving you.

It’s like the Soup Nazi pizza:

“You want pepperoni? Didn’t you see the sign? You do not get choices. Do you want pizza, or not? You want pizza? Okay, then sit down and shut up. You get what we give you!”

Turned out fine. But it wasn’t paella . . .

Fortunately, we managed to procure some today though . . .

Which was kind of lucky, really. We went to the paella place that Eduardo, our bike tour guide recommended – except when we arrived they were only serving breakfast – because it wasn’t 1 p.m. yet. Did I mention that Spain works on a different schedule than us Americans?

When Diana asked about paella, the hostess gave her kind of a look of death – presumably because it’s so uncouth to be thinking about lunch at such an uncivilized hour – but then instructed her to go to the next dining room – where they were, miraculously, serving paella. Now, most people think of seafood when they think of paella. Valencia paella is made with chicken and rabbit. And artichoke hearts and fava beans. Excellent!

Two other Valencia points I wanted to mention . . . First, the beach. I forgot to mention the beach when listing Valencia’s virtues. Big clean beautiful beach with a big boardwalk stretching on for miles. Beach volleyball courts. Little shower things every few hundred feet to rinse off after your swim. Beachside restaurants. Really, one of the nicest beaches we’ve seen on our whole trip.

Which brings me to the last point on Valencia. Tour Guide Eduardo kept telling us that they pay a lot of taxes but they are happy to pay because they feel like they get a great return on their investment. Clean streets and beaches. Beautiful architecture and buildings. And a feeling of security. We didn’t ask – but I’m guessing that Eduardo is not a Trump fan . . .

I mentioned the oranges, but otherwise not much about the riding. Both yesterday and today featured more castles on top of mountains.

Very striking. Otherwise lots of orange groves. Lots and lots. And today we wound up at a campground on the beach. I mean, the tent site is not pretty. But the Mediterranean is literally 50’ away – we can hear the waves crashing – and, like in Valencia – the beach is nice and clean. What’s not to like? I guess this is why people like to bike around here . . .