Valencia home of the Holy Grail, bullfighting, cats and psych hospitals

Here's 8 interesting things about Valencia 

1) Valencia still has bullfighting.. There is a bull ring in the city center. the season is April to October. It is still legal in Spain, although some cities have outlawed it. it's a cultural tradition. No comment. 

2) The Holy Grail (the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper) is in the Valencia cathedral. Note: Some other places claim they have it too.

3) The Mercado Central is the largest indoor market in Europe. They sell produce, meat, fish, cheese, poultry. There are also restaurants. It started as an open air market in 1839. The current building was built in the early 1800's. 

4) There is a Water Tribunal  outside the Valencia cathedral. It happens every Thursday at noon. Eight elected farmers sit in leather chairs in a circle wearing the traditional black blouse of the farmers of the area. They solve disputes between farmers about water involving the irrigation system around Valencia. 

5) People in Valencia love cats. Their botanical garden has more than 50 resident cats. Explains a guy we saw on the street today with a cat on his shoulder.

6) The first psychiatric hospital in the world was in Valencia.

7) Valencia has the narrowest building in Europe : La Estrecha. It is between two buildings and has 5 floors. it is a little more than 42 inches wide. it was originally built as a family home.

8) Valencia has the incredible City of Arts and Sciences. It is part of an old riverbed made into a park. It is an architectural marvel with buildings shaped like a human eye, whales bones and a lotus flower It houses an art museum, Europes biggest aquarium, science museum, a giant garden, concert halls, event centers.

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October 03, 2022 at 06:43PM

Spain has not been a democracy for very long

It is so interesting to learn about these European countries. 

I didn't know that Spain has only been a "democracy" since 1975 after Franco died. That is only 47 years. There are lots of people alive today who lived under Franco. 

Franco came out on top in the Spanish civil war. He led the nationalist, conservative, monarchist side. The other side was a leftist coalition. During his time he used forced labor, concentration camps and executions to kill 50-100,000 people. In the end, he was responsible for the deaths of up to 200,000 French people when the war dead are included. 

Spain is one country but it's decentralized. It has 17 autonomous communities  based on region, nationality or being a historical community. There are two autonomous cities. 

According to the Spanish constitution, the communities have limited self government. They have their own legislative assembly, council and council President and justice system. They manage their finances.

There have been movements to gain independence, or to be their own equal separate country within Spain, by a couple of nationality communities, particularly Catalonia. They have voted to be independent but have been refused and their parliament dissolved by the prime minister at one time.  Some of the parliament have been jailed. 

Spain is also divided into provinces and members of the congress and senate are elected there. The prime minister is the leader of the majority party that was elected. 

They are a constitutional monarchy government just like Britain. The monarchy had been dissolved but was restored during the time of Franco. 

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October 02, 2022 at 06:47PM

What it's like travelling all the time

 So we are are leaving France for now. Next stop Valencia, Spain. I will miss the sound of the French language. My favorite phrase: s'il vous plait (if you please). I just like the way it sounds. We heard it often.

We took Transavia airlines to Malaga, Spain on the southern coast of Spain, quite far from Valencia. It was the cheapest way to go. Never heard of Transavia but the flight was fine except for that hard landing (dude.....). Flying on some of these planes, the space is so small between you and the seat ahead of you makes me long for the back of a C130. 

So short layover and on to Ryanair, which we've been on before. (Another hard landing) These budget airlines have their flight attendants come through with a cart with all these products for sale like cologne, jewelry, etc. Pretty bizarre. Ryan air has more leg room.

Off the plane and now to find how to get to the airbnb. Google maps is a wonderful thing. We have to go on the metro. Cities have zones with fares and we weren't sure we had the right number for the ticket so we went to the info desk. Stood in long line and when we got up there older woman no habla English. So we went to the ticket machine and bought tickets and hoped for the best. We got through the ticket entry, got on metro, got off at our stop. Walked half a mile to the airbnb (not unusual)

This has been our life for the past 18 weeks. Navigating train systems, airports, public transportation. Now they're in different languages. 

We have taken 6 plane flights, 11 long ride trains (some with transfers). We have used 2 subway systems, 4 tram systems, 4 city trains, 2 bus lines and one place we just walked.  We have stayed in 9 airbnbs, 5 hotels. We have been to 9 countries, 12 cities. And a partridge in a pear tree.

I had no clue what this trip would be like . I had stars in my eyes about spending a month in 12 countries. That changed almost immediately. It's just too expensive to rent an airbnb for a month in the height of tourist season. So we starting spending less than a month most of the time, a lot of time a week. Moving so often is stressful. 

Living in airbnbs is hit or miss. We have a had a couple of really nice ones. The rest have been mediocre to bad. The hotels have been fine, expect for one.

Interspersed with all this has been a wonderful trip of sights that I never expected to see in my life. 

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October 01, 2022 at 06:26PM

What America could learn from Europe

 

It's a travel day. We went from Macon back to Lyon. We are at a hotel at the airport. Leave tomorrow for Valencia, Spain. We will be back to France - to Paris - at the end of October. It was only a 45 minute train ride here to Lyon. Then a tram ride to the airport. 

I've been thinking...uh oh. As we have gone to each country, I have looked at the history because I find it interesting. It's really opened my eyes to the difference between the U.S. and just about any other country in the world. They have a long history and we don't. It's obvious, but I never really thought about how that would affect peoples character. 

Europe can trace its history to very ancient times. They lived through two world wars that affected everybody's lives directly. That obviously shapes a people and how they think.

In France, for example,  they lived under nazi occupation for 4 years. There are still people alive who remember that. Their children were told the stories. That happened in many countries here.

Each country here has its own history and culture. Each is distinct. People know the history and are proud of it. They share cultural traits.

Everything is so old here - the housing, the buildings. There are historical sites thousands of years old. The way people live is different than the US. Housing is not necessarily brand spanking new, in fact the majority of it isn't. Old buildings don't have air conditioning, window screens, dryers, etc., things we take for granted in the U.S.

I'm not saying having that stuff is better. A lot of people here think it's just unnecessary.  They have fans or open their windows. They hang their clothes on dryer racks. 

People here don't seem as frantic as people in the U.S. They aren't as stressed, at least it doesn't feel like it. They are more relaxed. There is not the level of violence here.  There is violence, but not everybody owns a gun. There are homeless here but they don't seem to be as numerous. People do sleep on the street but you don't see as many. The homeless here sit with a cup out. 

I don't mean to make it sound like this is an ideal society. It isn't. It does feel much calmer. It feels kinder. It feels like they try to deal with problems rather than just talk about them. 

America is such a young country. It has so many different kinds of people trying to get along. The disparity between rich and poor or even middle class is so wide. It is so fast paced. The social safety net isn't as strong.

We have so much to learn from these countries with their long histories and stories of survival through trying times. I wish we would listen more.

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September 30, 2022 at 08:31PM

La Resistence in Macon, France

Free France Resistance flag

When we arrived in Macon, France it was raining on the way to the airbnb. It rained yesterday  and half of today . Then it was partly cloudy and about 60.  So we were able to walk around the town. It's a town of 33,000 people but seems bigger than that.

Macron started as a Celtic settlement in the 1st century BC. Then along came the Romans, known to be here then because of a large coin, plate and figurine stash found here in the 17th century. Therer were probably 30,000 gold and silver coins that disappeared (stolen) at the time. Eight figurines and a plate were left, that are now in, wait for it, the British museum.

In the middle ages this town controlled access to the wine growing area and lay between two kingdoms. It made a  lot of money off all of that.

It lived under Austrian occupation 3 times in its history. 

In World War 2 it was the northernmost city in unoccupied France. It was one of the centers of the French Resistance. 

We sat in a square today that has a memorial to those who died from Macon in the German occupation. There is a special plaque to memorialize Berty Albrecht, considered a heroine of the Resistance movement. She helped start a major part of the Resistance. She was tricked by the gestapo to go to a meeting in the square where she was arrested and then imprisoned. After being tortured, she committed suicide.

The Resistance involved all layers of French society and every occupation. They sabotaged German infrastructure, gave  information to the Allies and helped prisoners escape. A general said they supplied 80% of the information before D-Day.

Ninety thousand Resistance fighters were killed in the four year German occupation. 

The things you learn in a small town in France.

 

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September 29, 2022 at 08:38PM

Macon,France is where that glass of Chardonnay comes from

 Its raining today so reading about France and Macon.

France has 13 regions. Next, there are 96 departments in the regions.  Those 96 departments are divided into 320 arrondissements. The arrondissements are divided into 1995 cantons. The cantons are divided into 34,826 communes. This for a country smaller than Texas. They all serve different functions and control certain things. The communes have councils and mayors and are equivalent to municipalities or townships. 

Macon, where we are is part of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comte region. It in the department of Saone-et-Louire. The arrondissement is Macon. There is a Macon 1 and 2 canton. Finally it's a commune with its own mayor and council.

That's a lot of organization. When it is so divided this much  a lot of people have a say in what goes on and politicians have to at least listen.

Why did I look into this? Because when I looked up Macon it said it was a commune and I wondered what that was.

The Maconnais wine region in the south of Burgandy is centered around - and named after- the town of Macon. They specialize in white wine made from Chardonnay(grape) and red wine from Pinot Noir(grape). There are many churches, chapels and castles in the middle of vineyards. 

There is a place near here called the Aze cave which has been occupied by humans and animals going back 300,000 years.

Even small towns have interesting histories!

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September 28, 2022 at 06:36PM

No room at the inn

 We are in authentic small town France. The town is Macon, 45 minutes north of Lyon.  Macron has a little over 33,000 people. It is on the Saone river. 

It has narrow little cobblestone streets with old buildings with shutters on the windows. It seems like a bigger town than it is. 

How did we end up here? Well, let me tell you. It was a series of mishaps, one big mistake by yours truly. 

So we left the fruit fly infested  and gross airbnb and went to a hotel last Tuesday. We stayed there til Saturday ready to go to the next airbnb in Lyon. Everything was copacetic.

We're sitting at the bus stop on Saturday with our luggage outside the hotel when I check the airbnb about where we're going. All of sudden, my stomach drops as I discover that I scheduled it for the wrong date. Instead of September 24-Oct 1, I had scheduled it for Oct 1-8. Uh oh, now what?

I quickly looked to see if the hotel we had just left had a room for that night. They did - at a cheaper price!  So we went back to the room we had been in. 

So now  what do we do for the rest of the week? So I called the desk and asked if the room was available until this Saturday. It was available through Monday night only. There was some big event occurring starting Tuesday. 

Ok, let's look for another hotel. There were no hotels within 20 miles of Lyon unless you wanted to pay $500 a night and there wasn't even many of those. Uh oh, now what? 

We ended up booking an Airbnb until Friday in Macon. It was the only option fairly close to Lyon. We have to go back to catch a plane on Saturday out of Lyon. 

I would like to say on my behalf, that with the many airbnbs, hotels, trains, planes we have been in and on, this is only my 15th mistake.  Really, it's the first time it's happened. So sue me.

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September 27, 2022 at 06:40PM