It's been a while...

Valencia's own David Ferrer smashing his way to victory, against all the odds whilst defending several match points against him, in the 2008 ATP Open de Tenis Comunidad Valenciana, April 2008

Well, it appears that over a month has elapsed since the last post on this site. Sorry, for those of you who faithfully check-in on a regular basis. I have a list of excuses as long as my exceedingly long arms.

Would you like the one about the numerous guests we've had in the past couple of months that have kept me away from the keyboard? OK, if that excuse doesn't wash (though it is true, and it would be very rude to simply keep blogging rather than showing people the sights of Valencia or cooking them tapas and paella!).

Then there's the other technology-oriented excuse - another genuine one - whilst results from my now-dead Dell PC. The hard drive, which stored by complete life (yeah, yeah, yeah... I did have a full backup!) finally died early last week - a clicking sound of the hard drive gasping its last followed by lots of blue screens and white type (why can't Microsoft vary the bad news with a bit of colour?!). Sadly, despite buying a lovely new hard drive - three times the capacity of the last one at 750GB - it wouldn't let me load Windows properly and so after crashes too numerous to mention, I have now recruited a computer-savvy person to come and bash it until it gets some sense about how Windows XP Professional is meant to just work right out of the box...

All of which means that we are now down to just three computers - one desktop, one laptop and this MacBook Pro. Lovely new Mac, but unfortunately, my life still exists on the backup hard drives and not on this little blighter, so whilst I'm able to just about cast my fat fingers around this titchy keypad, I don't have access to any pretty photos or video at the moment, so it's gonna be a few days more before I can crank something up which will spit out the necessary graphic images (though I've managed to grab one or two for the time-being).

Quite a bit has happened here in not-so-sunny-all-of-the-time Valencia over the past seven weeks or so. Firstly I took delivery of this shiny new Apple Mac and am very slowly teaching myself all the various graphics packages to enable me to be more productive in my 'virtual life', though I am so used to all the Windows shortcuts, I'm not sure if it will be in this lifetime or the next that I'll finally conquer the Mac shortcuts too!

We have navigated ourselves from one set of guests to another. It has been great fun spending time with so many people over the past year and in particular showing off this beautiful city to our friends and work colleagues. It is also simply so rewarding to spend real quality time with people when so often we communicate by occasional email, phonecall or the odd dinner. To spend 2, 3, 4 or more days with our friends - especially when the climate has been favourable - has been a real joy here in Valencia, and something we'll always treasure. Still, there has to be some benefit in all these visits coming to an end... Chris finally gets the chance to move back into his own bedroom, leaving Jo to get on with life in her own bedroom! What a star he's been, camping out, off and on, for the past nine months or so, in his sister's bedroom!

So then to events and activities - we've seen and experienced plenty during April and May. From my old fave, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (last saw them about 15 years ago at the old Sadler's Wells Theatre in London) to the finals of the ATP Open de Tenis Comunidad Valenciana, and from The Night of the Proms concert (one of the most surreal and weird evenings of our life!) to a long weekend camping with friends in Santa Pola (just south of Alicante), we've had an action-packed couple of months.

Going back to The Night of the Proms - we were warned in the advanced publicity within the local 24/7 Valencia Guide that the event would be a little on the strange side, and it didn't disappoint. Where else could you find the following: a 72-piece orchestra performing Land of Hope and Glory and a variety of Strauss waltzes, the Spanish heart-throb Miguel Rios, a male German singer, Galileo, who could belt 'em out in a combination of soprano and baritone - all in the same ballad (astoundingly talented), OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark), Alan Parsons (yes, he of the original 'Project' fame - and a giant of a man), 1970's one-hit-wonder-but-stunning-pianist-and-vocalist, John Miles ('Music was my first love...') and the 1980's supergroup, Simple Minds... in a 10,000-seater echo-ey athletics velodrome? Musically, the evening was superb. With regard to the choice of musical programming - Strauss, Elgar, Simple Minds' 'Belfast Child', Alan Parsons' 'Psychobabble' and OMD's 'Enola Gay' - it all makes the strangest of bedfellows.


The island of Tabarca lies just off the coast of Santa Pola, and makes a great day trip, though it's best to go on a windless day!

Scarcely had we recovered our eardrums and reaffirmed that we were in fact still living within the early 21st century and not the previous one or two hundred years (music aside)... it was time for our first camping adventure. As it turned out, more by luck than by judgement, we picked the last few clear sunny days before an onslaught of April and May showers - nay, storms! Together with friends, we spent three days and two nights camping at Santa Pola, a few miles to the south of Alicante. Well, the good news is that the brand new Decathlon-special 6-berth tent worked fine. We even managed to set it up and put it away again in around 30 minutes on each occasion. However, the land mass required to fully erect the structure is equivalent to the area of Devon and Cornwall combined, so I am anticipating the need for multiple camping 'sites' on each occasion we plan to pitch it in the future. We are really looking forward to two or three weeks' camping up around the north west of Spain in the summer, and possibly some time in Portugal if we can organise things in time...


Chris, Jo and Liz show off that vast tent, and prove the fact that it did turn out just like the instructions said it would!

Of course, aside from all the concerts and camping, we have managed to pack in a number of great meals and parties with friends. A great night out celebrating Angel's 40th back in late April and Margaret's 50th earlier in May. Both events required visits to the best local bars and restaurants, and it strikes me that even if we stay here another decade, partying everyday, we won't have managed to visit every hostelry, though we might die trying!

Chris and Jo have also had their own busy and enterprising times. Both have had schoolfriends over to play; they continue to play football with other children from our apartment block; they've done well at their respective school sports days school concerts and Chris has managed not only to achieve his faith badge for cubs back in Cottenham whilst staying in Valencia, but he has just learned that he has achieved a 'Distinction' in his Royal Schools of Music recorder exam - something he chose to study for and put himself through. Jo was mentioned in dispatches at a school parents day last term for being a finalist in a competition to design a new logo for the parents association. We were subsequently invited to attend a meeting with the parents association but felt that keeping a meaningful conversation going in Valenciano was a step too far for all of us amateur Spanish speakers! Both children have had a great academic year at school and hopefully will continue to benefit from this Spanish experience long into the future. We are both in awe of their abilities to muck in with their Spanish friends, sharing communication between English, Spanish and... Valenciano, which they have both had to study this year. Term finishes later in June and then it's time for the great summer camping fest.

Meanwhile, technology permitting, we'll be back with further blogs from time-to-time throughout the summer. Oh... and I'm still promising those Fallas videos sometime!

Requena, Chera, Chulilla and Chelva

We often find it surprising how many beautiful towns and villages we can find within an hour or so's drive of Valencia, considering 50% of the area surrounding the city is either sea or the Albufera lagoon!


A quick saunter down at the lakeside of the beautiful Embalse de Buseo

On Tuesday this week, we headed out via Requena (now quite a regular retreat when we have guests) to the villages of Chera, Chulilla and Chelva and some even smaller hamlets en route. On this occasion, we didn't stop in Requena - other than to search for a petrol filling station before going into the mountains. We headed on to Embalse de Buseo, a reservoir in the Sierra de Tejo mountains. The whole area - including the access roads to it - was completely deserted, but evidence shows that the summer season gets busy with a comprehensive camp site set up in the woods surrounding it. Chris decided he wanted to pitch camp there and then (our entire equipment for this day trip consisted of a couple of portable DVD players, cameras and a bag of snacks!), but we managed to get going again after a snack break, dropping into the nearby village of Chera briefly before continuing onto the slightly larger town (everything is relative) of Chulilla, near the banks of the River Turia which continues on down to Valencia.


Chulilla - the town on a cliff-edge

Chulilla provided a great place for lunch and a brisk walk afterwards. The town appears to 'hang' over a steep ravine along one side, with some buildings precariously perched, giving the appearance that a strong wind would send them over the cliff and into the valley below. In many ways, the whole area reminds me of Sedona in Arizona, and in some ways like a miniature Grand Canyon with the deep reddish soil and sedimentary rock colouring.


Reddish sedimentary rock much like Arizona - here a cliff-face hewn into a human face shape - made-made or natural?

Finding lunch was a little more problematic than anticipated as even the few odd bars and cafes that did exist appeared to be closed. Finally with some local help, we found a very small bar which was able to provide a decent three-course menu del día for €7.50-a-head - including wine and coffee! The post-lunch walk took us deep down into the ravine and along the valley floor for about a mile through a dense bamboo and pine forest to a natural diving pool which also appears to double-up as the source of a hydro electric station nearby.


Liz, Chris and Jo at the diving pool


Brian, Chris and Jo pausing on the way back up!

On the way back to Valencia we briefly took a detour north-easterly to the village of Chelva and on the way, an even larger lake, dammed for hydro-electricity, Embalse de Loriguilla. A pretty vista-filled day and a few mountain destinations for our planned camping breaks in the summer!

Semana Santa... another day, another procession

Semana Santa Easter Day Procession in full swing

Easter is a big thing here in Spain. We have seen the set-up for various Easter week processions in Andalucia in the recent past, but I hadn't actually experienced Easter Sunday in Spain since my childhood. It is purely coincidental that Easter week should clash with the end of the Fallas festival this year - one religious celebration rolled into the back end of another.


Jo making use of some of the many thousands of carnations thrown to the waiting crowds


Chris patiently waits in the crowd for his own carnation!

It is as if this city needs no pause for recuperation because scarcely had the costumes of the Falleras been put back in the closet and the trumpets and drums of the Fallas marching bands stowed back in their cases than an entirely new set of immaculate costumes were dusted off and the instruments brought back out for the annual Semana Santa processions. Processions took place 'in three acts' on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and culminating in the Resurrection Procession on Easter Sunday in the Marinera de Valencia - inland from the beach area a couple of blocks.




Marching band after marching band throughout the route

We only managed to attend the final parade on Sunday, but it was yet another show of true city-wide community proportions with thousands upon thousands of marching groups and bands.


All ages participating in the Easter Sunday Resurrection Procession

The costumes - every one of them immaculately detailed - looked stunning. Again, the questions ran through our minds as to who can possibly foot the bill for such sumptuous threads. The thousands of participants, carried hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of carnations in every colour - many of which were dispatched into the crowds lined up on both sides of the street for the 2 or 3 mile route. We also wonder where such vast quantities of carnations could have been harvested for this event.


Babes in arms - not one detail of the costumes was missed out

We stood in one position for nearly ninety minutes and the procession still took around an hour of that time to completely pass us by, underlining the sheer scale of the day's event. Yet again, all ages were active participants - even babes were carried literally in arms - in the full regalia of their group. This will be yet one more video to add to the growing backlog of 'editing projects'!

Feliz Navidad from Valencia

Well, we've had a great Christmas with the family so far. We thought we ought to follow some Spanish traditions and some British ones. Probably the net effect will be that the children will end up with far more presents than they need and the parents will consume far more food or alcohol than they require...

Diana, Thayer, Laurence and Lena arrived at VLC airport on Thursday morning whilst Chris and Jo were enjoying their last couple of days at school. The usual mid-morning traffic through the outskirts of Valencia delayed our convoy trip back to the apartment, having already spent the best part of an hour trying to rent a car for Diana at the airport. Lesson for the holiday: book cars in advance or expect inflated prices, or worse still, no available cars!

We spent a leisurely morning at Cabanyal Market down by the beach on Friday and managed to locate a suitable turkey (dead!), fruit and veg for the Christmas festivities. Having selected the most suitably-sized turkey, the butcher was all for slicing the bird up like a bacon joint as she raised her hand with an enormous meat cleaver, readied for action. Surprisingly, roasting whole chickens or turkeys in Spain is still seen as something quaintly English, or more likely, viewed with complete disbelief. For the evening, a trip into town to see Circo Wonderland - one of the few remaining animal circuses still touring in Europe. We saw this show a few years ago further up the coast, north of Barcelona, and whilst there isn't the glitz of a Cirque du Soleil show (we saw the latest Cirque du Soleil show - Delerium - at Feria Valencia the week before - wow!), it is nevertheless an exceptional show where the animals all appear to be extremely well-treated, well-fed and happy in their roles. This may be a controversial view, but the animals are, in the main, rare species, and one wonders how some of them will ever survive if not kept in zoos, employed in circuses and exploited in no ways more sinister than trying to demonstrate to young children the value of these beautiful creatures to the wild, and their likely fate if we do not do more to protect them in their natural habitats. Sadly, constant rain after the show somewhat dampened our walk through the various plazas of the old city as we tried to count the numerous Christmas streetlighting decorations up and down every side street. Such reminders of the UK (not!). Unlike the UK, most European cities - not least Spanish cities - manage to celebrate Christmas each year with the most fantastic lighting displays up and down every street and plaza - and wherever there is room, flowerbeds are full to bursting with poinsettias and other seasonal plants. We don't see the newspaper headlines following yet another local authority or chamber of commerce complaining that it can 'no longer afford to make a contribution to the lights this year', because in Spain, it is obviously something which is regarded as the right thing to do. No self-respecting community, it seems, would permit the apathy and disregard shown for seasonal public displays, by some British towns and cities, to permeate here...


Handbags stands of the Requena market... how can one escape without purchase?
And then to Saturday, for the return match to show off Requena to the rest of the family. With the weather in the region not quite as bad as the UK at Christmas, it was nevertheless cold and rainy. With Requena up in the hills, preparing for a few degrees south of the weather in Valencia is definitely a good idea. Having arrived, the rain stopped and the temperature settled down to a damp 10°C or so whilst we tramped out to the Saturday morning market doing Santa's work, picking up the bargains of the day, before settling down to another first class menu del día lunch at Mesón del Vino - the town's fantastic Michelin-listed restaurant.


Museu de Les Ciències Príncep Felip

A trip to the Science Museum (Museu de Les Ciències Príncep Felip) at the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia was voted the favoured activity for the children and mums on Sunday, whilst the remaining adults did some of the last-minute gift and food shopping. And yesterday, Christmas Eve was spent out and about at the famous concrete Gulliver childrens' park, and amazingly, despite the obvious lack of appearance (ever!) of any Health and Safety automatons, no child was seriously injured. Final, final last minute presents were obtained from El Corté Inglés and Carrefour, followed by a quick bike trip to show off Plaza de la Virgen to Diana. The evening was spent cooking and eating the first of our Christmas meals (this is where we follow Spanish and English traditions with Christmas celebrated on 24 and 25 December, plus the most important date of the Spanish Christmas calendar - Threes Kings Day on 6 January).


Celeb photos at La Pepica, taken by star paparazzi photographer, Chris Whitehead
[L-R] i) Laurence and Liz; ii) Diana and Lena; iii) Jo and Sandi; iv) Margaret

Today is Christmas Day and it has been a little hectic! There were tears late last night when some children found themselves unable to await Santa's call by sleeping through the night. This caused a near meltdown in Santa's schedule, but the evening was saved, because it appeared that Santa did visit after all, but was unable to deliver presents to the children's beds on account of them still being awake. They had to make do with Santa's delivery to the balcony outside on the ninth floor, but he didn't seem to deliver any less presents! Today, more presents continued to flow throughout the morning before we departed for a sumptuous multi-course meal at the ever-wonderful La Pepica restaurant with new friends Sandi and Margaret. La Pepica never fails to impress - a restaurant down on La Malvarossa beach which was the regular haunt of Ernest Hemingway amongst hordes of other others celebrities from across the globe, in days gone by. I think it is high time that the management awarded us some kind of 'frequent flyer' loyalty points as it is becoming a bit of a regular haunt of ours now - and we are very definitely not of the 'celeb' variety. A four-hour marathon meal with plenty of festive cheer and we were ready for a dusk walk along the beach before retiring back to the apartment to catch up with the day's Christmas TV. There are still plenty more days of Christmas remaining and with a week-long trip back to the UK and the 'Three Kings Parade' in Valencia to look forward to on our return, I'd better sign off for the moment and get some sleep... or another glass of wine!

Home shopping in Lliria, lunch in Segorbe

The sights at Segorbe

Being Saturday and being sunshine and rich blue skies means time for a little exploring. Today we started with a shopping trip to Lliria, some 20km north of Valencia on the motorway towards Ademuz. We came across Lliria and indeed its British supermarket, Spainsbury's (yes that's right, Spainsbury's - I cannot believe the lawyers have let that one get away) through the British friend of a Spanish friend who assured us that this was the supermarket to get all those 'hard-to-find' products from good old Blighty. He turned out to be as good as his word, for Spainsbury's did indeed stock all those essentials from Marmite and PG Tips to Christmas puddings and custard powder (as well as those other traditional British ingredients including Chicken Korma and Tikka cook-in sauces!). It turns out that Spainsbury's does home deliveries just like like its UK nearly-namesake - we might be clicking some more online orders soon!


View of Segorbe looking across from its castle

Then, aiming for the town of Segorbe, we drove cross country on one of the most stunning mountain drives so far (there have been several and they've all been stunning). This trip included some of the windiest roads we've driven for a while and from the village of Gatova onwards, the roads were narrow and look like they've hardly been resurfaced for many a year. The scenery was breathtaking - similar in parts to the red rock canyons of Sedona in Arizona. Along the first part of the drive, the roads had very definitely received a recent investment - considerable sums. However, the most interesting aspect of this was, to us, the fact that a cycle path, several kilometeres in length, had been buit alongside the road - some 20 metres or so away - painted green and with white markings along its entire length. Apparently the cycle path serves no useful purpose, since for all the time we drove alongside it, I saw only one cyclist making use of it - and around 100 other cyclists competing with the cars on the main carriageway.


Chris and Jo believe that they are the first British children ever to drink from all 50 'Fuente de los 50 Caños'. Is this a legitimate Guinness Record?

Arriving at Segorbe in the late morning, we were treated to pleasant late autumn weather (similar to recent visits to Requena) which though brightly sunlit, was mitigated by the coolness associated with being at a higher altitude than Valencia (though still probably somewhat lower down than Requena). A brisk walk up the hill to the incredibly helpful Oficina de Turismo to get our bearings (plus town map and colour booklet guide of places to see) and we were off to discover what was left of the town's castle. The views from the top are stunning throughout the 360° sweep. We stopped at the small Bar Valencia in the town centre for an excellent menú del día and then off back down the hill to discover the Fuente de los cincuenta caños - 50 taps out of which permanently gush the town's natural mineral water. The fifty taps represent each one of the fifty provinces of Spain. We saw several people filling their plastic bottles and water carriers while we were there - before Chris and Jo got the bright idea of sampling the produce of every one of the fifty taps - before getting back into the car, soaking wet, for the 50km toilet-less trip back to Valencia! A very pleasant day out, and having missed the town's current 'foodie' celebration - I Muestra Gastronomica de la Seta y el Cordero which is coming to an end, and arriving at the wrong time of year for its most famous annual shindig, Entrada de toros y caballos (entry of the bulls and horses), I can feel one or two return trips in the offing.

Birthday treat: mid-life crisis or mis-spent youth? You decide!

Brian, Chris and Jo celebrating someone's forty-something birthday on roller blades!

OK, birthdays only come around once a year and although not a particularly special milestone this year, there is something nagging at me about still being able to do most things a nine or seven year-old can do. Thus it was that this year, after promising myself for several years, I finally got myself a pair of roller-blades for my birthday. Laugh, you may well do, but I did manage to stay vertical the entire day whilst 'blading' around the Palau de la Musica in the Turia riverbed and later in the day at the America's Cup Port which has an amazing expanse of tarmac and no one on it for the majority of the time. Chris and Jo have also become quite proficient at skating now, having spent a similar amount of time on their new respectively blue and pink rollerblades - all courtesy the dear-old Decathlon sports hypermarket on the outskirts of Valencia.

The rest of my birthday was equally rewarding. In the evening, our friend Lisa kindly babysat the kids whilst we disappeared off for a meal followed by a trip to Babel, Valencia's answer to the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, to see Christopher Zalla's new Sundance Festival-winning film, Padre Nuestro. As somewhat long-in-the-tooth marketers, the marketing of events never ceases to underwhelm us, and this was no different. We spent most of the previous week trying to search out a film of sufficient quality, preferably with some subtitles so we could improve our Spanish, secure in the knowledge we could at least understand the plot. Padre Nuestro was firstly advertised - deeply within one website - with only a starting date and no times. A cycle ride to the cinema two days in advance resulted in no further information as the place was shut up and no publicity material was posted in or outside the venue. On the evening of the performance, the times were suddenly posted, plus the fact that the film was in 'Inglés / Español'. Having committed to the event, we duly sat down to discover about 10 lines spoken in English (and subtitled into Spanish) and the rest of the film spoken in Spanish with no subtitles in any language! What we really need her is a local Trading Standards inspector! Still, we enjoyed the movie and managed to figure out the majority of the plot. I'm still not sure how good the film was though, because without more identifiable language, it's hard to tell!

With the movie beginning at 11.00pm - considered only early to mid-evening here, we departed for home around 1.15am, with several more movies due to start well into the early hours of Sunday morning, and the temperature around us - in early October - in the mid-twenties. Now that's what I call ideal weather for a great autumn birthday!

Sagunto? Sagunt? Saguntum? My Arse...

The controversially refurbished Roman amphitheatre at Sagunto

A beautiful town that boasts a range of names over the years - from the 'Roman 'Saguntum', the Valenciano 'Sagunt' and the Castilian 'Sagunto', this settlement, famous for it's sprawling castle, was once known only as Arse! Try telling the to seven and nine year-olds with a straight face! Only yesterday, we were visiting the 'Colon' district of Valencia (more later), so we're unsure as to which parts of the anatomy are next, and whether they will follow the slang or medical terminology!


Brian, Chris and Jo - spot the ruin!

So, Sagunto (since we are attempting to learn Castillian Spanish at the moment), or more precisely the castle ruins, was the destination of today's visit. Inspired by research for Chris's Roman project at his new school, we drove 25km up the motorway from Valencia to pick our way through the town and into the hills where the ruins remain to this day, covering a stretch of around a kilometre, and seven sections representing different periods in the castle's history. We were even tackled by local gypsies on our descent, who explained that this castle was where the battles with the real El Cid had taken place, not the castle of Peñiscola, used as the backdrop for Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren's 1961 film of the same name, some 100km or so to the north (and which we had visited last year).


Liz and Jo amongst the ruins

Around half way up the hill stands the recently refurbished Roman amphitheatre, which remains a controversial building since the original ruins are more than dominated by the twenty-first century brick and concrete that now encase the original, turning it once again into a working open-air theatre. As with most people, we were in two minds as to whether the building should have been upgraded, but contented ourselves with the fact that there are plenty of other examples of Roman amphitheatre ruins around Europe, so turning one into a functioning building again is, perhaps, acceptable.

Definitely a worthwhile visit - and the views from the top, looking north towards Castellon and south back towards Valencia, are truly stunning.

The rest of the week


IVAM - the contemporary art museum

With Chris and Jo at school all week, we've been out exploring when not engrossed in work. We managed various trips to pick up necessary items of shopping - schoolbooks for Chris and Jo and other household items for the apartment. On occasion we have managed slightly more cultural trips including a visit to IVAM, the contemporary art museum (aka Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno). We felt the building somewhat over-compensated for the art, but it looks like we managed to visit in between exhibitions as a couple of the galleries were roped off. However, a future visit might be needed!


Museo de Bellas Artes

We also managed a cycle along the Turia riverbed one evening after school to the Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts) which houses a spectacular range of artefacts and paintings. With only an hour or so of daylight (and a dodgy rear puncture on Jo's bike - now repaired!), we felt a little rushed and will return again soon. In this case not only were the objects and paintings fascinating, the building itself has undergone a stunning renovation - worth a tour in itself.


Mercado de Colon

Yesterday we managed to discover another little gem quite close to the apartment. the Colon Market is another stunningly revamped building (style and money seem to be in great abundance wherever we look) which houses an impressive-looking food court at ground level, with the ever-present El Corté Inglés filling up much of the below-ground level. And what's more, Colon Market is right in the centre of the shoe-selling district. Why do I get the feeling we'll be paying frequent visits back to the area in future?!


A trip up the coast to Port Saplaya

To round the evening off, we met up with friends, Manoli, Angel, Susana and Sandra for a short drive up the coast to Port Saplaya. Yet another hidey-hole of creative genius, Port Saplaya is a residential district out on the coast, with a range of attractive apartment blocks built up around a series of man-made canals, all of which lead out to the sea. For boat-minded people, what better place to have a holiday or weekend apartment and a mooring outside the front door than Port Saplaya? There's a small sailing club at the entrance to the canals, so again, another visit is called for during office opening hours, to see if there's a chance we might get some sailing practice in.

Looking forward to the week ahead, Liz and I are looking forward to a concert at the Palau de la Musica tomorrow evening, featuring Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition along with Mozart and something more contemporary. It will be our first venture into another of Valencia's great iconic buildings - again, a stone's throw from the apartment. Just what we need during an otherwise busy working week!