In April this year I wrote about Spanish author, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, and his novels. What better place to pick one up than in Valencia.
The Flanders Panel was published in Spanish in 1990 and translated into English four years later. I am only on page twenty-six so I’m unlikely to give away the plot. So far, it concerns a picture restorer in Madrid getting the eponymous Flemish panel ready to be auctioned. It is a picture of two men playing chess, with a woman reading in the background, dated 1471, by Pieter Van Huys (1415-1481). Trick or treat? Both – Arturo P-R knows how to trick us and I’m sure that this will be a treat to read. I have not read anything by Dan Brown, and don’t intend to, but I suspect that this is up-market Dan Brown.
Meanwhile back on the Valencia tourist trail there are two attractions at diametrically opposite ends of the city. On Sunday morning we walked for an hour or so to the Bioparc – what you and I’d call a zoo. There was a huge queue to get in so we aborted the project and walked back into the old part of Valencia for lunch. Yesterday we showed more determination and queued for twenty-five minutes to get into Oceanogràfic, the biggest aquarium in Europe.
It is in the same complex as the opera house with similarly striking futuristic architecture. I used to enjoy watching fish swimming around but when they are big fish, like dolphins, and swim dementedly in the same pattern there is little pleasure for me now. I was glad that we hadn’t visited the zoo.
We repaired to a specialist gin bar where I had a Valencia gin – the one from Galicia that I chose was out of stock. The range of gins on offer is extensive. This one caught my eye.
For lunch we both had gazpacho and cod with mashed potatoes and aioli. I felt a bit bad about the cod so soon after our visit to the aquarium.
Wonderful Valencia. If you have time, I adored the ceramics museum. And quite near if I recall there is a very fine cranky art gallery in a repurposed seminary which keeps – but does keep – eccentric opening hours which it nowhere posts on the building itself. There is a splendid Caravaggio. Evensong is also to be had in the seminary’s church, also on a slighlty peculiar schedule.
Please save me from my own dimness and either cut out my redundant ceramics Museum remarks, or ignore my last comment altogether.
Yes, we found the ceramics museum but did not discover the cranky art gallery. It’s always good to have something left on the plate for a future visit. Among many other things we missed were the Botanic Gardens and the modern art museum.