Valencia, Spain - last Sunday market.

This week is one "last" after another. After all my walking on Saturday, the only thing on my agenda was to go to the Canet Sunday market and get an artichoke. They have piles of them here in the markets and I have never known what to do with them  I have eaten asiago and artichoke dip (one of my favorites) and eaten pickled artichoke hearts in a jar, from Costco. But I have never dealt with one myself, Fi outlined her Mum's recipe and I did some looking at internet recipes and decided it was time.

Super windy day. I love it when the wind blows the spray off the top of the waves.

 

After taking a number and standing waiting for shoppers to finish (very entertaining) I asked for 1 artichoke. Nope, had to buy a kilo, they were only 1 Euro after all. Ok, 1 kilo of  alcachofa and 1 kilo kiwi amarillo, because I just can't resist them.

Then cuarto aceitunas con limon and cuarto aceitunas cocktail. 250 ml olives with lemon and 250 ml olive cocktail (olives, onions, carrots, gerkins). Can I eat that much in the 4 days I have left? I am going to try.

Finally an apple slice. I didn't even try in Spanish, just pointed and paid.

A rather small Fallas, with an emphasis on taking care of the sea

I think really, just for the kids. Canet doesn't have a real organized neighbourhood feel so I was surprised to see even this.

But they still had the party tent with the food and the drinks!

This is a kilo of yellow kiwi and I did finish them.

This was a kilo of artichokes, and I didn't finish them.

I just took one, took off the lower leaves and peeled the stem. Its the one on the bottom.

Trimmed the top and the top of the leaves. I then steamed it until

the stem was tender and the petals pulled off easily. About an hour. It went a sort of dull purple colour.

I served it with a dip made of mayonnaise and balsamic vinaigrette.

I ate it by pulling off each petal, dipping it and then using my teeth to squeeze the "meat" out. It was pretty minimal. Hardly seemed worth the bother.

I cut the remaining bit in half, took out the fuzzy bit which is inedible, and ate the "choke" and the stem. They were quite tasty but still a lot of messyness to get to them.

The next morning my stomach was upset, so I decided artichokes weren't for me and threw the rest of them out.

Valencia, Spain - Fallas in Port de Segunto

Saturday, so not the regular bus schedule. I decided to walk to Port de Segunto. The bus has been taking a different route, I suppose because the festival has caused streets to be closed. This route has shown me a different section and I had seen a lovely church that I wanted to investigate.

I could already see the the Port was more 'dressed up' than in previous visits.

 

The church was at the end of a public space with fountains

and a memorial to those who had died in industrial accidents.

I sat at one of these tables, ordered an agua con gas and a vino tinto (which came with a little dish of olives)

and painted the central window.

Unfortunately the church wasn't open so I couldn't see inside.

Rather than retracing my steps, back along the beach, I headed into the town and almost immediately found a Fallas in progress.

People, all in matching sweatshirts, were working on it, placing the coloured gravel exactly

and covering the bases first with sand and then with turf.

Each neighbourhood forms a group that

establishes a theme,

oversees the design and creation process (completed by professionals companies that specialize in this)

and then puts it all together

and provides security,

before burning it all down

on the night of March 19, 

to celebrate the arrival of spring.

At the same time, on the edge of these hives of activity, children have small wooden boxes filled with firecrackers

that they set off, mostly unsupervised. 

Some were erected but had not yet got the finishing touches.

Some had big tents with bars and BBQs set up for the workers, any excuse for a party. Some of the bars and restaurants in town also had large groups, dressed the same, having a good time after the hard work was done.

Some sat, forlorn, waiting to be attended to.

I was nearly home before I realized that I hadn't paid for the water and wine I had while painting. You have to ask for the bill, the server wont bother you with it until you ask, and I had just got up and left!

I hate feeling guilty, but I had done, at that point about 16000 steps, I was tired and my knee was hurting. So I vowed to myself that I would go back another day and pay for it!

Valencia, Spain - change in the weather.

It was a like a switch got turned on and Spain decided to give me lovely weather for my last week

 

The kind of weather where

I turned the heat off and left the balcony door open.

The kind of weather where the walk to the grocery store (just getting milk, I need to try and finish the food in the house) turned into

a walk on the beach.

This machine was 

sifting through the sand and picking up the stones.

They are nice, sand and sea

smoothed stones, that are not a hardship to walk on in bare feet.

But they take their beach seriously here, so they get piled up, out of the way of the 

beach walkers.

The beautiful weather has coincided with the Fallas Festival so there are a lot more people around

enjoying it.

Some of the pipes, that had been laid out on the beach, have been towed out and this boat has turned up to use them to pump sand up on to the beach.

The Bonny River (on my marine app) has been long awaited. There was a lot of consternation on Facebook as to whether she would arrive in time to pump sand before the tourists arrived. The work is being done on the next beach North. I am on Canet beach and the next one is Almarda (they are actually one long continuous beach)

They are also putting in more accessible pathways. These are not wood, some kind of plastic (hopefully recycled).

There are a few of these kiosks scattered along the passieg and I have been walking past them without paying any attention for the last 9 weeks. They have current info (weather etc) on them as well as advertising

but they are also a wifi hotspot and have a phone with emergency numbers listed.

I woke up one morning to the sound of a chain saw.

They were trimming the palm trees in front of the apartment.

The most recent painting.

These 3 are being left for my landlord to use in the apartment (his request after I sent him a picture of the first of my paintings)