Day 8: Riding the Rails
Sundays in Spain, or at least in Valencia, are different. They say everything is closed and, while that’s not *quite* true, enough is closed to make a big difference. Thanks to my wicked Spanish flexing of the day before we knew our cafe was going to be open as of 8:30, and we had plans to Ride the Rails with Lee so we knew it wouldn’t be a completely empty day.
Riding the Rails is something Lee and her husband Phil have been doing for as long as I’ve been connected to them. I know because I’ve gobbled up her FB posts about it as we were in planning mode. They pick a train (metro, really) line and go to the end, do some exploring, have a drink or a meal, and head back again. It’s a brilliant way to get to know the transit system and the extended city area, and Valencia kindly made all the trains free on Sundays to help them along (ok, so it happened in the other order but still).
To meet Lee at the Alameda station required us to take a train to a train, going from above-ground to below-ground. I won’t say the lines are making sense yet but we did go to a stop we’d been to before so that’s something. We had our fans this time and I felt ever so local, sitting on a bench at the Alameda stop waiting for Lee & Phil to arrive. That all fell apart when I left my hard-won fan on said bench when we scrambled to join Lee (Phil is off having an adventure in the US so he didn’t join us) on the train car. Baby steps, right?
Our trip took us almost to the end of lines 3 & 5 (I don’t remember which one we were on) to Manises, the ceramics capital of Valencia and, less picturesque, the Valencia Airport. We walked the streets catching sight of beautiful ceramic tile-work in unexpected places before going to the Municipal Museum of Ceramics, also free on Sundays. Lee had been there before so headed off to do a deep dive into a few of her favorite pieces while Bill and I wandered through all three floors of exhibits showing the progression of the ceramics artistry/industry over the last few hundred years. It’s amazing to see how much work goes into things like floor tile — hand-painted tile after tile that, ultimately, gets walked on. That so much of the artistry is still visible today is quite literally awesome.
We stopped for a quick beverage (café con hielo for Lee, té con hielo for me, and agua con gas for Bill) and then rode the rails back to the city. Manises isn’t exactly a suburb, and it’s for sure not a part of the “city” proper. It’s a town with its own government and such that is a part of the Valencia autonomous region. I’m focusing on figuring out the city for now and then will graduate to the other areas! Instead of going straight home, though, we rode the train into Cabañal, walked for a bit to pick up another train and see the sights — walking along the waterfront (the water itself was hidden behind opulent hotels) and taking notes from Lee on awesome places to visit once the tourists clear out. Not gonna lie…I love knowing that we’ll still be here beyond tourist season.
The train we grabbed to head home let Lee off first and, as we continued, I started seeing places we’d been or passed before and that felt great. The trains are very clean here (though you do need to watch for wet seats from beach-goers) and they make it easy to follow with clear announcements of the next stop interspersed with reminders to wear your mask. I think I’ll keep “riding the rails” even after this weekend (when the free Sundays end).
I wish I could say the rest of our Sunday was full of excitement and exploration. It wasn’t. It was full of researching language schools and fighting with technology and navigating the changes from Lufthansa as we prep for our reunion with Mitzie (and Amanda) and a fair amount of “I dunno, what do YOU want to do?” Basically a regular Sunday when I don’t have work to distract me. Bill napped, I planned. We chatted with Amanda and got her flight booked. We eventually ate dinner. It was a flat end to a day that had started out really well.
Maybe that means we’re “settling in” now? Today will have things in it. Bill starts work, I have some explorations planned, and we have social plans in the evening. Ebbing and flowing, like we just live here or something.