Silk

La Lonja was originally the silk market exchange in the sixteenth century until the Arab silk cultivators were expelled from Valencia when it became a general commercial meeting place. More recently, during the Spanish Civil War it housed the Spanish parliament when Valencia was one of the last Republican centres to fall to the fascist forces of Franco. It,s a beautiful building with silky palm-like columns supporting the vaulted roof and a peaceful courtyard filled with orange trees in the centre.

I've taken so many photos today and it was difficult to choose one from the many: our breakfast at the Orxateria at the entrance to the market (orxata, in Valencian,or horchata in Spanish, is a drink made from liquidised tiger nuts, hot chocolate is also recommended with churros) (I've been surprised, pleased and a little confused by how much Valencian is used here rather than Spanish - it's a dialect of Catalan which is close to Occitan so it's fun noticing the similarities, but luckily for serious communication E speaks excellent Spanish and the rest of us have enough to get by.) And the rest of the day: an hour or so spent in the market buying all the wonderful things we found - baby aubergines almergo, cured meats, olives, stuffed peppers, boquerones, octopus in paprika sauce, goats' cheese, and more.

We wandered around the old town, took a lot of photos (some of which I'll put in a Flickr set when I get home), visited La Lonja,had a good menu del dia, a much needed siesta, a drink in a beautiful old bar not far from the apartment - I had agua de Valencia, freshly squeezed orange juice, cava and something stronger too which I couldn't identify - then home to make and eat a delicious supper of our morning's market purchases to the sounds of a lively Friday night in the street outside.

One of the cheeses we bought was Torta de Casar, a sheep's cheese curdled with thistles rather than rennet - we wouldn't have known about this if Ceridwen hadn't told LoJ about it in a comment on his blog. It's a very tasty cheese that you eat by cutting the top off and dipping bread or a spoon into it - very nice!