The Slow Down on Valencia

Something new, something different for us.

And after many years of travel, we’ve seen most of the “must see” sights. We’ve done the mini-grand tours of Eastern Europe, Italy, France, Spain, and the UK, hopping from place to place over a couple weeks.  Having been teachers, we always had the luxury of time for summer travel—even if it was low budget.  You know—backpacks, picnic meals, and cheap rooms with bathrooms down the hall. Early, early Rick Steves.

But as we’ve aged and particularly after we retired, we have tried to spend more time in one location—finding a home base and using it for day trips and outings.  It worked spectacularly well in the Dordogne, Provence, Umbria, Portugal, and most recently in the Valencia province in Spain.  Our usual stay is about two or three weeks in one place and then move, minimizing the number of days on the road, packing and unpacking. It lets us get to know better a region, maybe meet some locals, enjoy the ambiance, and find the hidden gems. Slow down.

But this year, we decided to take it one step further.  And slow down even more.  

We are renting an apartment in Valencia, Spain, for two months. We went through a real rental agency, not a short-term vacation rental company like VRBO.  We signed a contract.  And moved in.

Of course, we had our share of worries.  Could we find enough to do for two months? What if the apartment was a dump? Could we adjust to the Spanish time for eating and sleeping? Would the language barrier be problem?  

All we had was the outline of a scheme.  Spend the first weeks digging more deeply into the third largest city in Spain.   Master public transportation for day trips to nearby sights. Take a few overnight train trips to other towns.  Maybe rent a car for further away places. At the price we’re paying for a two month rental (about what we would pay for two weeks in short-term vacation rental), we can afford to spend a few nights in other places. 

Early days yet — not quite a week — but everything is working out splendidly—so far plenty to do (we’ve even joined a local gym), the apartment is comfortable and perfectly located right across from Mercado de Ruzafa.

We are already on the Spanish schedule, and with tourist Spanish and English speakers everywhere, no real language issues.   Yes, we are getting used to the noise level in our hip and trendy neighborhood of Ruzafa—numerous restaurants on our street are open until around midnight.  But when you eat dinner at 9:30 pm go to bed at 1 am, and get up around 9 am, noise is not really a problem.  As we were told several years ago in Seville, Americans just need to move their clocks three hours.  Before lunch means any time up until 3 pm.  We’ve found a decent neighborhood espresso joint — not quite as easy to do here as in Italy or France — our favorite cheese guy, a grumpy fishmonger and a bakery.  Yep, we’re settling in.  Many, many restaurants within a five minute walk — Lebanese, lots of Italian options, a couple Mexican places and even sushi.  And we have barely explored beyond our neighborhood.

So why Valencia?  

Last year we visited the Valencia province for two weeks but the city itself for just three days.  We chose Valencia because of the city’s amazing sights and history, its lovely Mediterranean seaside location and its great food scene.  But more importantly, I had a former work colleague and good friend who moved there last year permanently with her husband, mother, and three dogs.  Valencia is her new life. 

We had two lovely, long lunches with her and her friends (all from our home town of Seattle) last year. Other than a wonderful morning tour led by one of her very knowledgeable friends, we didn’t get to see a lot of the city.  When asked what we did in Valencia, we said, “We ate lunch.”  

But that very, very brief encounter with Valencia the city convinced us we wanted more.  

We have a long list of main tourist sights we missed last year on our “to see” list. We’ve already checked off the Turia river park, including sunset views of the City Arts and Sciences buildings. 

But there is so much more — several sights we’ve “seen” that we want to get back to and spend some time with — the National Ceramics Museum, the Valencia Catheral (with the Pope’s certified real holy grail), and a dozen more.  Plus on the “to do” list—shopping at the second hand stores and flea markets, eating at a vast variety of restaurants (from Michelin starred places to hole in the wall local joints), taking cooking classes and wine tastings, biking, swimming in the Mediterranean, and most importantly, spending time with our friends.

On advice from our local friends, we’ve already identified some day trips—Sagunto with its famous castle, Requena—the center of the local wine industry, Xativa—birthplace of the Borgia popes.  We also want to go back to a lovely rural restaurant we ate at twice an hour and half outside Valencia, El Casa Tio David, with our friends.

Yes, we think we’ve found the right place to test our new, slower, different approach to travel.

And from first impressions, we’re already beginning to ask ourselves “Will two months really be enough?”