Michael Powell's Blog, page 66
April 22, 2015
Valencia’s Ancient City Gates: Serranos and Quart
A thousand years ago, a formidable set of walls protected Valencia from marauders and invading armies, and anyone hoping to gain access to the city had to pass through one of its twelve monumental gates. Today, the medieval walls have disappeared, but two gates remain: the Torres de Serranos to the north, and the Torres de Quart to the west.
Ever since their construction at the end of the 14th century, the Torres de Serrano have been considered the main entrance to Valencia. This is the gate...
April 19, 2015
The Casa-Museo Benlliure
As Valencia’s first family of art, the Benlliures left an indelible mark on the city’s cultural landscape, around the turn of the 20th century. We visited their former home on Calle Blanquerias, which has been converted into a museum dedicated to the family and their astounding artistic output.
Three separate Benlliures managed to achieve widespread fame in the world of art. José Benlliure (1858-1937) was a painter well-known throughout Spain for his grand historical works, while his younger...
April 15, 2015
The Palau de la Música
There’s more than one major concert venue in the Turia park. About a kilometer away from the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia’s futuristic egg-shaped opera house, you’ll find the Palau de la Música. Built in 1987, the Palau focuses on classical music and is prized for its acoustics, welcoming orchestras and famous musicians from around the world.
After his first performance here, Plácido Domingo gushed about the auditorium, declaring that Valencia’s Palau de la Música is the Stradivar...
April 13, 2015
El Centro del Carmen
The neighborhood of El Carmen takes its name from the massive, ancient convent around which it was built. Today, the monks are long gone, but the Convento del Carmen has found a renewed purpose as one of the city’s premiere cultural spaces.
The Royal Convent of Our Lady of the Carmen was founded in 1281, shortly after King James I of Aragon reclaimed Valencia for Christianity. It’s been extended and renovated a few times throughout the centuries, but many of the original elements have surviv...
April 11, 2015
The Semana Santa Marinera
Valencia doesn’t get a lot of time to recover from Fallas before the next big holiday rears its pointy head. Easter Week is celebrated throughout the city, but the main events happen in the city’s beachfront districts. The Semana Santa Marinera fills the streets of Cabanyal with processions, Jesus statues, flying flowers, marching bands, and brotherhoods in scary hoods.
Semana Santa is probably my least favorite holiday of the year. That sounds harsh, but let me explain. First of all, it arr...
April 6, 2015
The Blasco-Ibáñez House
Vicente Blasco-Ibáñez is easily the most important literary figure in modern Valencian history. As well as author of several classic novels, he was a world traveler, newspaper editor, and political firebrand, as famous for his controversial rhetoric as for his stormy love affairs. His chalet on Malvarrosa Beach has today been converted into a museum, dedicated to his life and works.
Born in Valencia in 1867, Blasco-Ibáñez grew up during an exciting period in Spanish history, when the general...
The Cervelló Palace
Despite its location in the center of Valencia, most people stroll right past the Palau de Cervelló without ever registering its presence. But don’t miss out. Built in the 17th century for the Counts of Cervelló, this is the city’s most important surviving palace.
The Palau de Cervelló’s original decorations, paintings and furniture are conserved within the rooms of the palace’s upper floor. The grand ballroom appears as it did hundreds of years ago, in those faraway days when society’s uppe...
April 4, 2015
A City Under the City: L’Almoina
Nowhere is the ancient history of Valencia more palpable than at L’Almoina: a former archaeological site which has been converted into a museum. Found next to the cathedral, L’Almoina takes visitors on a walk underneath the ground, and back through time.
For twenty years, from 1985 to 2005, the Plaza de l’Almoina in downtown Valencia was the site of a large-scale archaeological dig. Researchers were astounded as they discovered walls, wells, pottery and coins from the city’s Arab and Visigot...
April 2, 2015
The Valencian History Museum
Before cobbling together our concise history of the city, we decided to refresh our knowledge at the Valencian History Museum. Housed inside an old cistern, this museum takes visitors on a comprehensive tour from the days of the Romans to Francisco Franco.
The Museu d’Història de València is found near the Parque de Cabecera, on the western edge of the city. Apparently, that’s far enough way to dissuade most tourists; every time we’ve visited, the museum has been deserted. That’s too bad, si...
March 28, 2015
More Images from Fallas
Considering the sheer size of Fallas, and the length of time over which it extends, it’s not too surprising that we snapped far more photographs of the festival than we could ever hope to publish. Here are some more, which didn’t quite fit into our other posts.
Every year, the city contributes a monument of its own to Fallas. Built in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento, it’s not usually among the festival’s best — the perversion and cutting sarcasm so prevalent in other fallas is wiped clean for this...
