#thejaunt troylovegates Valencia

[the-jaunt]

Day 2 : met up with a Canadian friend last night and wandered the maze of the old city drinking beer and looking at all the murals and architectural wonders … somehow managed to get up early today and go for a short freezing swim in the Mediterranean … my mind is boggled by the layers upon layers of history and color and the motion of all the people in the streets … this afternoon I am going to take a break from the sun and try to conjure up a drawing of my time in Valencia so far …

[the-jaunt]

Day 1 : Valencia ... my watch tells me I wandered over 20 km today ... I haven't been to Europe in almost 5 years and had forgotten how beautifully Europeans engage with their cities ... the parks ... the squares...the bars spilling out onto the streets ... kids playing football down the alley ... sounds reverberating off the rows of buildings late at night ... laughter and the clink of bottles ... I love you already Valencia

[the-jaunt]

The final day of jaunting through Valencia... I rented a bike to take on as much as I could ... from beaches , farms on the edge of town, crumbling old port squats, the central market ... I even went to see the supposed holy grail .... I am going to miss the density and crush of everything ... the mixture of the urban planning which has farm plots , factories , houses , churches all squished together on random blocks ... the age and detail and decay of the architecture... my eyes are going to be bored back home ! Thanks the jaunt ...

[the-jaunt]

Day 4 : today I left the city and walked out into the countryside... to a strange No-man's land of rice fields , Roma encampments, pomegranate trees and wild cats .... The sun is strong and my shoes have holes in them ... I have walked 110 km in 4 days ... in the evening my friend showed up from Berlin and we went on some dive bar exploration ... bar brawls and all

[the-jaunt]

Day 3 … Valencia forced me to slow down today … it was a city holiday and everyone was just having coffee in the squares and walking their dogs … I wandered lost … hoping I might bump into a grocery store but only the corner stores were open so I had a diet of oranges , bananas and potato chips … lots of lazy drawing in the park