This year, Carmen has been with me to Berlin and to Lyon, but both were only long weekends away - she’d not yet had a week away anywhere. Today that was all going to change as we set off on an adventure on the banks of the Turia in Spain: València.
Interestingly, it’s a place name that even the locals are not consistent with. Since 2017 the official name is València, but in 2023 they use proposed the dual use of Valencia and Valéncia (strangely with the accent differing from the original). Even the pronunciation isn’t consistent, as in parts of Spain they’ll pronounce the end as ‘thea’, but it seems the locals use ‘see-ah’ just as we would in the UK. It’s likely a difference between Catalan, and the more common dialect of Castilian in Spain.
Whilst Carmen did her packing, I sat and worked on my laptop: doing some development work for my personal blog software. To avoid needing to cook very late in the day upon arrival in Spain, we decided we’d be best eating something warm at midday. We didn’t really have time to go anywhere, so we ordered some fast food from Maemes via JustEat for £20. Not too bad considering that included a slice of cake too, which I saved for the evening.
After a relaxed start to the day, an Uber arrived to take us to London Heathrow Terminal 3. Even though this cost £33.95, it was still cheaper than parking at Heathrow for a week. I knew the return journey would likely cost more, but even if the return journey cost £50 it’d still be cheaper than the £126 quote for using the official airport parking for just over a week.
Once at the terminal it was then relatively quick to check-in our luggage, and get through security. This was despite having to queue for dropping off my bag as the automated machine had made a mess of printing my luggage tag and needed a reprint. Having already eaten, we just needed some snacks to have when arriving in València. For me, this was a meal deal from Boots.
I thought ChatGPT might be able to decide what gate our flight was likely to depart from, but it failed to get it right. So far that was two for two on it failing to be helpful with this trip.
I wondered what sort of weather conditions we’d face on arrival. One week ago I’d read a news report that València had issued red weather warnings, after having been battered by torrential floods again. Some sources described it as an extreme danger warning. The weather forecast online had seemed okay however (except for race day), and the places mentioned had been further south and inland from where we'd soon be - they referred to the province, not the city. The FCO had actually removed the severe weather warning advice as of October 13th.
Difficult conditions continued on Monday with a red alert for rain issued by the Aemet covering Valencia as the weather front continued to affect residents on the country’s eastern side.
Contrary to what Eliza Doolittle was coached to say, the rain in Spain didn’t fall mainly on the plane (yes, I know it should be plain). The flight took around 2.5 hours, and from there it felt like a rush to get through immigration and baggage collection, to then get to the AirBNB. We’d got until 21:00 to check-in before they’d charge us extra for a late check-in so ideally we didn’t want to be late.
The new e-gates when arriving in Spain, did not seem to be in place as expected. It was the usual kiosk for passport stamps. This was a very short queue and much quicker than expected as we were the only flight using immigration.
When the plane had left the gate at Heathrow, the AirTag in my luggage reported it was no longer with me so there was some doubt whether it was in the plane or not. It seemed strange as in theory the bag would be somewhere beneath us, and my phone was already in airplane mode so wasn’t sure how it figured that out. Fortunately it appeared on the luggage carousel quickly.
We found our way to the airport’s metro station, which is signposted from the exit, and bought a €5.35 AB+ ticket to get us to Xàtiva station. This was not to be confused with the town of Xàtiva which by train is an hour south of the city. Buying two tickets only prints you a single SUMA ticket so you have to tap it twice to get through. We weren’t completely sure of it, so asked at the information desk before trying it. When we were told that was what to do, I did remember reading advice that if you’re in a group it can work out cheaper to pass a card around that’s charged for multiple trips.
The train journey takes about twenty minutes, and then it was only a 10-15 minute walk from the station to where we’d be staying for the next week. There was a police car outside a noisy restaurant there, so it seemed there’d been some sort of trouble. Hopefully it wouldn’t be noisy for us. Our host met us outside, led us up three flights of steps, and showed us round before leaving us the keys. It was a surprisingly nice place.
Once we’d settled in to the AirBNB, we headed out to Lidl which was a longer walk away than I thought. Our intention was to get some water, and something for breakfast for tomorrow. We also decided on some pasta for tomorrow evening as well which would save looking for an Italian to eat at whilst saving some money to use on other meals.
We then settled back in to the apartment for the evening as our first day of the holiday came to an end. It was quieter than expected when the doors and shutters were closed, but we could still hear the tapas bar.