This edition of London Times comes to you (in)direct from Valencia Spain. It’s (in)direct because it’s not physically from Spain because I’m writing this in my home in London.
I was in Spain for the end of 2024 and the start of 2025 so this is really a Writing Down The Words And Publishing the Photos From When I Was There But I’m Now Back Home Letter From Spain but that’s not exactly a snappy article title so I cut the first bit.
I’m therefore typing this from a grey-skied London with the central heating on full blast, wearing three layers of clothing whilst remembering the blue skies of Valencia and beer and wine at half the London prices.
This is what things look like outside the front of my home right now at 2.30 on a bleak January afternoon. Grey skies, bare trees and 3 degrees centigrade.
Going In and Out With A Valencian Bang
We (Mrs M and I) hit Valencia in late December, flying in on a budget airline. We have a lot of friends there from our five years living in the city up to the end of 2023.
When you make friends in Valencia, you should make sure that at least one couple are 1, party animals and 2, have a top-floor apartment directly opposite Valencia’s New Year midnight firework display.
The fact we have so many friends in Valencia, I must admit, has more to do with the gregarious and convivial Mrs M than her somewhat less sociable husband aka the miserable ol’ git.
What? No football?
Despite the New Year’s fun, it wasn’t all fun and games in Valencia. For a start, I had to miss three West Ham home games which was stressful. To be fair, it’s stressful going to their matches too.
Secondly, the Spanish have a two-week break from football over the festive period. Two weeks without football? That’s one reason we had to return to London; it’s not normal behaviour to go so long without football and not fill the gap with cricket.
Being Spanish, they’ve naturally tagged an extra festival onto the Christmas and New Year celebrations that they call Los Tres Reyes Magos. This means the celebrations last until around the 6th of January and the city centre is lit up until then.
We were staying near to the stadium of Valencia’s other football team, Levante. But what with the extended break and then all of Levante’s next games being away from home, there was no live football. Frustrating as all I could do was look at the stadium longingly.
Music for the soul
Valencia doesn’t have a great live music scene either but I suppose it’s hardly London where I’m more accustomed to probably the greatest music scene in the world. For three weeks I kept things together thanks to Spotify and YouTube Music. This was one I played a lot: Holiday In Spain of course although Adam Duritz wrote that he may take a holiday in Spain whereas I did.
He needs to get off his arse and do it. I also suggest he choose Valencia rather than Barcelona as it’s less expensive and not so commercialised. The music scene might be better, I have to concede.
Eat, drink and have fun
If the poor music scene and the lack of football over the Christmas period is a bummer, there is a plus side; Valencia is not short of places to eat and drink. Nor are we short of friends there who all want to go out to eat and drink with us. Well, go out with Mrs M if I’m being accurate; I come as part of the package. Rough with the smooth, so to speak.
Music and beer
But when Ms Social Butterfly, aka Mrs M, arranged a girl’s only night out, their menfolk decided to also go out to play.
The ladies went to a sophisticated up-market Vietnamese restaurant in the posh part of town to talk about relationships and emotions (I suppose). We all bowled over to a bar behind the train station to drink beer, talk about football and argue over who was the greatest ever lead guitarist.
What a brilliant bar we chose — a bar and vinyl record, CD and second-hand music book store combined.
Really; if this place is not some kind of paradise on Earth, nothing is. Nevertheless, we had to eat eventually so we found a burger place and continued the guitarist debate.
I’m going back to this bar next time though. I have a few purchases to make and not just beer next time.
Me, Omar Shariff & Valencia
Mrs M and I went to a few restaurants while in Valencia but one we visited with friends was owned by Omar Shariff’s son and his Russian wife. It was an Italian restaurant. Of course.
Now, I know what you’re going to ask. Why would the son of an Egyptian actor and his Russian wife run an Italian restaurant in a provincial city in Spain?
I do not know but the friends we went with (thanks to Mrs M and her social butterfly nexus) knew Mr Shariff and chatted with him after our meal. I didn’t like to ask Mr Shariff the question hovering on my lips as I’m sure he’s bored with it so it remains a mystery.
Our friends, who were originally from Texas, also seem to know a lot of famous and well-connected people such as Bill and Hilary Clinton and a few others so it was not a surprise they knew a film star’s son.
I did once see the Queen go past in a car 25 years ago and I sat near to James Corden at a West Ham game in 2019.
The restaurant has a lot of photos of Omar although I’m still not clear what that has to do with Italian cuisine unless it was his favourite food. And just to confuse everyone even more, the cook came out to chat with us too. He was from India.
I go down to the River
The heart of Valencia is Turia Park. After serious flooding in the ’50s, the River Turia was diverted south of the city. The former river bed was turned into an eight-mile-long public park with green spaces, paths, running and cycle tracks and sports pitches.
Sadly the south of the city remains unprotected and over 220 people died in the terrible floods of October 2024, one of the worst natural disasters in Spanish history.
The devasted area of Valencia has still not been fully cleaned up and there are memorials to the disaster everywhere, including this one in Colon Market. That’s Colon as in Cristobal Colon not the intestine that passes waste to the rectum of course.
This display is particularly poignant as it has the shovels and boots covered in mud the locals had to clear after it slid down the mountains with the flood water. It sat by a Christmas Tree to remember the victims and those still homeless.
Valencia the song
I first heard the unofficial hymn of Valencia when I went to my first Valencia Football Club football match. They play it before games to stir emotion in the players and fans. At my London club West Ham, they play London Calling by the Clash which goes some way to demonstrating the less confrontational attitude of the Spanish.
I don’t know if Levante also play it as obviously, I didn’t get to go.
You’ll also hear it during the Fallas festival in Valencia and during the L’Ofrena de Flors (the offering of flowers in the local Valenciano language) festival. They like a festival in Spain.
Wikipedia says the song was included in the soundtrack of the 1926 silent film Valencia which makes no sense.*
Lots of artists have recorded it and it was a big hit in 1926 thanks to the silent film although I’m still struggling with how anybody actually heard it. It was a hit in the USA in the 1950s for Tony Martin and then a big hit in the UK in 1963 for an instrumental version by The Shadows.
To finish the article, here’s the version they play before the Valencia FC games. If you want to get into the Valencia mood, place a hand on your heart and go all misty-eyed.
*Yes I know, the organist would play the sheet music in the cinema but that would have spoilt my joke.
"Los Tres Reyes Magos". I assume this is in honor of the fellows who bore gold, frankincense and myrrh...