I started the morning with a visit to the cathedral. A typical Spanish story as this cathedral replaced a mosque on the site, which had replaced an earlier church, which replaced a Roman temple. Next stop was the Museum of Fine Arts. For me, one of the highlights was seeing another of the few Bosch paintings, this one a triptych of the scourging of Christ. You have to look closely, there is a lot of easily overlooked detail. Most of the art is Valencian painters, with a few other Spanish artists, such as some Velasquez, Murillo, and El Greco and some Dutch art as well. The special exhibit was interesting as it featured Joaquin Soralla who helped to change Spanish art perspectives from holy or mythological themes to modern, everyday ones. He worked at the same time as the impressionists, but his style is more plein air. After that I took a long walk to the part area and back. One reason for doing so is that I needed to find a cheap pocketknife and corkscrew since I couldn’t bring any from home in my carry on. I needed to find one of the cheap Chinese import stores typically run by Chinese residents of Spain. I knew the touristy central district would not have any, but after walking a kilometer or two into the everyday working district, I was able to find not one, but three of them. So I’m all set to begin my Camino walk tomorrow. By the way, my phone says I took 23874 steps today, which should translate into at least 11 or 12 miles. Another interesting thin in Valencia is that their language is actually Valenciano, not Spanish. It is similar but definitely no the same as Spanish. It wasn’t a problem, though, as most people I spoke to sized me up pretty quickly and started speaking English before I could say anything.
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