This is the first of several guides to cities that I’ve
lived in, their good points and bad points. I’ve decided lived in, is more than 2 months in a
city, which is long enough to get a bit of an idea of life there, although of
course maybe I am wrong with some facts, these are only my opinions. Also some
of the cities I lived in almost 10 years ago so things could've changed, since
I last lived there. The cities include 2 UK cities, 3 Australian, 1 in New
Zealand, 2 in Canada, 1 in Colombia, and 1 in Spain.
If you disagree on my points please feel free to tell me,
what and why, like I said I could be wrong. The first city I am going to look
at is Valencia in Spain, which I moved to with my family at the beginning of
this year, so the info is up to date, but perhaps 7 or 8 months in a city is
not enough time to know some things about it.Valencia
Valencia is a medium sized city on the Mediterranean coast
in Spain. It has about 800,000 in the city proper and almost 2 million in the
urban area. It is a historic city and the capital of the Valencian Community,
which stretches along the central eastern coast of Spain. Apart from its size,
which for me is the perfect size for a city to live in, its other really big
plus factor is the climate. It has little rain, never gets too cold, for much
of the year it hovers in the 20s for daytime temperatures, only in the heat of
summer is the climate a bit too hot.
Valencia is located by the sea, but the centre is inland,
and so it is easy to go weeks
without heading out to the beach, but it is there right
within the city limits and easy to get to by car, bus, or metro. Valencia is
also an important transport hub within Spain with motorways and railways,
heading north to Barcelona, south to Alicante and Murcia, and inland to Madrid.
The city is really flat, and so is good for cycling, or even walking. In fact
coming from the UK, Valencia, is an incredibly compact city, as almost everyone
lives in flats.
I would say the size of the city proper is comparable to
Leicester, in the UK, but it has more than double the people. This high density
means in the city there are no suburban areas, and wherever you live its never
far to shops bars and other businesses.
Valencia has a range of public transport, buses, metro,
suburban trains, and a public bicycle scheme. Although of course for many
people the car is king, and if you live outside Valencia proper it is probably
the best option for most journeys except going to a few destinations.
The metro is quite small, but includes underground trains,
and two tram lines, its quick and good for getting to the city centre, beach,
airport and a few other places. Strangely enough the metro within zone A is
cheaper than the buses, although in September metro prices went up, but buses
prices didn’t, so they aren’t that different. The metro is a bit like a
suburban train network as some lines go quite far out of the city, in some
cases almost as far as the Cercanias suburban train network. Although the
advantage of the metro is it connects with many stations in the city, where as
the trains, only have 3 stations within Valencia, and only really one for the
central area.
It is said that the Valencian Community’s biggest export is
sunshine, with all the millions of package tourist holidaymakers that come to
other parts of the community particularly Alicante and the Costa Blanca you can
see why. But, in fact all year the sun shines, the average Valencian day
whether in winter, spring, summer or autumn is sunny with few clouds. This is
something that I really like having lived in many rain drenched cities
throughout my life, including any UK city, Vancouver, and Bogota.
One of the things I really like about Valencia is its city
centre. It is really big and has several different areas with different things and styles,
including lots of historic sites. In the north of the centre is the historic
district of El Carmen. This is a place with a maze of narrow streets and tiny bars
and restaurants. It is also the main nightlife area of the city, full of young
Valencians at the weekend and tourists the rest of the time. Being in the
centre the bars and restaurants are a little expensive, but some are very nice.
South of El Carmen is the more touristy area bounded by Plaza del virgin, the
cathedral, Plaza de la Reina, and the Mercado central. This area is also full
of old narrow streets and bars and restaurants, but also full of tourist shops,
and groups of tourists wandering around lost. South of here and more to the
east is the main shopping district, this area has slightly bigger streets, and
also includes the plaza del Ayuntamiento, and train station.
Curving around the north of the centre is Valencia's unique
feature, and one of my favourite things about the city; Jardines del Turia.
This is the major city park, which follows the course of the old river, which
was diverted many years ago. So the park is a 7km long winding green space
through the city. It is also sunken below street level and crossed by many
bridges, some old and historic, others modern and new. It includes playgrounds,
sports facilities, a stadium, green spaces, fountains, etc, and at one end the
Biopark, which is Valencia’s zoo, and at the other, the Cuidad de las Artes y
Ciencias (The city of Arts and Sciences), Valencia's space-age culture and
entertainment complex.
In tourist guides to Valencia this 'cuidad' always features
highly, but for residents, its nice that it’s there, but it isn’t something I visit much.
The complex includes an opera house, a science museum, an IMAX, and Europe’s
largest aquarium. In fact we did visit the aquarium many months ago, and it was
a really good day, and worth the 25-euro entrance fee, but I’ve heard bad
things about the science museum.
Talking about entertainment and culture, Valencia is full of
museums, the most famous being Bellas Artes, art museum, and IVAM, modern art
museum. There are many historical sites, especially in the centre. The usual
entertainment can be found, cinemas, lots of nightlife, a number of shopping
centres within the city, and further out.
And of course in the neighbouring region you can find
mountains inland, many amazing beaches along the coast. Lots of old Spanish
towns, many of them with crazy festivals at different times of the year,
including La Tomatina in Bunol, which is basically a giant tomato fight, and of
course the biggest festival which is all over the community is, Las Fallas.
Every town city and neighbourhood celebrates this, but the biggest is in
Valencia. It has many facets, but the main feature is many giant wooden
sculptures are erected all over the city, with images of all kinds of things,
and then on the night of 19th March, they are all burnt to the ground.
This festival can be a great thing perhaps the first few
years, but I can see how it can become an annoyance as the years go on. Firstly from late
February until late march, fireworks can be set off in the streets anywhere and
anytime, and the first 19 days in March, the plaza Ayuntamiento is a no go at
2pm as it is full of tourists watching the Mascleta (daytime firework display).
Then the final 4 days see the city overrun with tourists, even in little
residential streets near the centre it can get like Trafalgar square at New
years. Having said this, it is a unique and interesting festival, and perhaps
if you like it enough you can join a Casa Fallera and become part of the
celebrations.
Crime in Valencia is relatively low, so it feels like one of
the safer cities I’ve lived in for a long time. Of course it does happen, but generally it
is lower than many UK cities. People walk the streets late at night by
themselves, although I personally would avoid the park late at night.
The city has two big universities, the Universitat de
Valencia, and the Universitat
Politecnica de Valencia. So it is full of students, and lots
of exchange students from other parts of Europe and the world, but also has
good options for studying if you're interested.
Being in Spain, there is less work around at the moment
although I would say there are jobs, but it’s tough to find them. If you are a
native English speaker, English teaching is a recession proof industry here and
there is still lots of this type of work around, mainly because the Spanish
unemployed are thinking of either moving to northern Europe or of learning
English to increase their employability.
Having said that finding work can be a problem, if you are
from Northern Europe, your money goes much further here, in fact its quite cheap
to live here. The supermarkets are cheap, rent isn’t too bad, and if you avoid
the centre, restaurants and bars are quite cheap too.
Finally a word on the language, if you don’t speak Spanish
it can make things harder here, but I would say with time you can learn enough
Spanish to manage. In the centre many businesses have English-speaking staff,
but outside there, almost no one speaks English, and Spanish is the universal
language. Of course there is another language spoken here, Valencian. Valencian
is taught in schools, and sometimes is the first language written in signs, but
generally, it’s not a problem here, if you have zero knowledge of Valencian,
many locals don't speak it either.
