📸 VALENCIA 2/3: Jardin del Turia!

As mentioned in my previous post, Valencia is divided in two by a long green ribbon, a park full of lawns, trees, stadiums, concerts and halls. It is officially called “Jardin del Turia”, but you might also call it more often “The Rio”, which means the river, because this is actually the bed of the Turia river which used to cross the city.

In 1957, Valencia was struck by catastrophic inundations when the Turia river swelled and caused death and destruction: more than 80 people died. The following year, the town decided to divert the river and to convert the former river bed into a highway. If the first part of the plan was a success, the idea to have an highway right in the middle of the city was opposed by the inhabitants, and eventually in the 1980s the townhall decided to turn the whole area into a green space which has become as iconic for Valencia as Hyde Park is for London or Central Park for New York.

Source

Nowdays, the Jardin del Turia is the biggest public park of Spain. It is 9 kilometers long, crossed by no less than 18 bridges, and offers an amazingly long list of activities to the citizens and the tourists.

^{Palau de la Musica}

I have personally not covered the whole ground but I could see hundreds and hundreds of people enjoy the park for picnic, walking their dogs, running, bicycling, playing football, tennis, rugby, dancing and even playing baseball - a first for me in Spain!

The best of all was that it never feels crowded because people are never crammed at the same place, it’s like a constant flux, a perpetual movement of bicycles, joggers, dogs and children.

Among the bridges of the Turia, the one which stood out for me was the Puente del Regne, because it was “guarded” by four awesome bronze statues called “the Guardians”, four gargoyles which may refer to the symbol of Valencia: the bat!

^{The Guardians of the Puente del Regne}

Of course, the park is host to the main landmarks of the city, first of all the Maria Sofia Palace of Arts, that huge shell which looks like a space-ship, used to host all kind of artistic performance, from opera to dance and concerts:

^{Maria Sofia Palace of Arts}

^{Maria Sofia Palace of Arts}

^{Maria Sofia Palace of Arts}

^{Maria Sofia Palace of Arts}

And then the Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias goes on with a huge complex dedicated to science and technologies in all their forms. From the Hemispheric 3D digital cinema hosted under that shell of glass:

^Hemispheric

^Hemispheric

To the Science Museum, which looks like to me - in its ivory splendor - like the bones of a huge prehistoric whale which would have been washed ashore and bleached by the scorching sun of the Mediterranean Sea.

^{Science Museum}

^{Science Museum}

^{Science Museum}

Running parallel to the Science Museum you can find the Umbracle, which is a long park covered with metallic arcades under which you can deambulate in the shadow of palm trees:

^Umbracle

Finally, the Jardin del Turia finish at the Oceanographic museum, a whole zoological museum dedicated, as its name implies, to the oceans and its inhabitants, about which I will tell you more in the third and last article dedicated to the city of Valencia.

^{Oceanographic}

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Valencia Old Town