Valencia

By way of celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary we drove 90km up the motorway to our favourite city, Valencia, which we first visited back in 2004 on the trip where we chose the plot of land on which our house now stands.  Three nights there gave us ample opportunity to explore the old town in more detail, take in some museums and galleries and enjoy some local food and wine.

Wedding anniversaries tend to bring on nostalgia for first dates and we often recall an evening in the City Arms in Earlsdon, Coventry a few days after we first met at the University May Ball. What did we talk about?    Our only recollection of the conversation that evening is that we discussed Arsenal's defeat in the 1980 European Cup Winners Cup Final when Graham Rix missed in the penalty shoot-out to give victory to Valencia (who said I'm not a romantic?). It's a coincidence that the city that now means so much to us should have featured on that early date.

We know rather more about the city now, a Mediterranean trading centre that became successively a Roman, Visigoth then Muslim city. It was briefly conquered by El Cid (played by Charlton Heston in the film) before finally falling to King Jaume's Christian army in 1238. Valencia's red and gold flag and bat emblem hark back to that era, recalling the colours of  Jaume's standard on which the bat allegedly perched the night before his final victory.

The Valencian flag flies over the XVth century silk exchange...

...and over the Torres de Serranos, part of the old city walls. 

Since then there have been highs and lows. Grand buildings still exist from the XV century golden age of the city when it was the most populous in Spain and one of the largest in Europe with huge influence through the Borgia Popes. However, except for a period of success in the nineteenth century when the city grew from 50,000 to 200,000 and was extended, it has been mostly downhill. It seems that each time there has been a conflict in Spain (and every 100 years there has been a big one) the area has picked the losing side and suffered as a result, exacerbating the effect of Spain's general decline as a world power.

In the last of these conflicts, the Civil War of 1936-9 Valencia became capital of the Spanish Republic after Madrid had fallen to Franco's Nationalists. But a return to former glory didn't happen as the Republic was overthrown and the city withdrew to being a provincial outpost with its language and separate identity suppressed.

Today Valencia, as Spain's third largest city with the best part of a million people, is increasingly vibrant. The beautiful architecture of the City of Arts and Sciences, the passion of the  supporters at Mestalla stadium, the world-renowned dish of paella and a deserved reputation as a party town based around the fiesta of Las Fallas, give the town a personality. Add to all that the beach and America's Cup port, the annual Formula One grand prix, 300 sunny days a year and the heady mixture of architecture from the last 700 years and there are plenty of reasons to enjoy being here.

But this weekend is the end of July and we will do what seemingly everyone else does at this time of year and head towards the beach for the whole of August. So we will get in the car, head south from Valencia and join the queue of traffic back towards Denia.