Walking the Turio

We had a lovely breakfast on our way to walking the green area of Valencia. After the severe flooding in 1957, and to prevent more, the city planners decided to divert the river bed away from the heavily populated areas. Instead of turning it into a road they had the fantastic idea of making it into a big walk, planted many trees and used the old bridges . It was lovely. We even saw a bird called a hoopoe, which I remember as a child seeing in a book and thinking how beautiful it was. It was scrambling around the ground feeding its young and fighting off a cheeky starling.

There were grounds for many sports , play areas for kids and yes, public toilets in a few places. And clean ones!!!

We didn’t walk back though , we got the no 95 bus which dropped us off in the old town and we walked to the Mercado Colon and had some lunch. Again, it was a lovely old building there are so many beautiful old buildings here. We walked back to the apartment for a rest and a cuppa and then walked a few streets away to the Rusaffa neighbourhood. It’s really cool. Lots of youngsters, vintage shops, bars and clubs. And the brightest painted buildings I’ve seen, beautiful. We stopped in a cafe/restaurant and had refreshment which included cake! Of course!

After this we walked to the old town area and there seemed to be some event going on with the young girls all dressed the the Valencian costume and clacking their castinets. The outfits were stunning and I read that they really expensive. They were all congregated at a church hall waiting to go in. So colourful and buzzing they all were.

We got home and had some toast and tea and watched the final of Race the World! Well down to the worthy winners! It’s not as good as last season when the two young Asian lads won and gave half their money to the street children charity in Brazil. Something that affected them badly when they were there. It was also more of a hardship with the language and the lack of transport.