Where’s Bertie? He’s in a car park opposite the Policia Local in Alcoy (exact location: 38.69779, -0.46625).
Weather: Not a hint of cloud seen all day. Pleasantly warm in the sun and out the wind.
We seem to have done quite a bit today. Unless I achieve a Personal Best in brevity, this could be a lengthy post.
The day started with a frost and, even though the heating had turned itself on twenty minutes before I emerged from bed, I was glad I’d made the decision last night that it would be a hot porridge day. Cold soaked oats, straight from the fridge, wouldn’t have been the best choice today.
With clear blue skies, the air soon started to warm up and by the time I set out up the Via Verde at 0930, it was comfortable to be out in a t-shirt (at least when moving at a reasonable pace).
My run didn’t start entirely well. I was only following the Via Verde for about 150m today, before branching off onto a Petit Randonee route. Down, down, down I went, past some tumble-down factory buildings, along a path and across a stream. From there I followed the clear red and white stripes of the waymarks along a cool, shaded path in the valley bottom. I’d gone about a kilometre along there before I came to realise that I’d followed the waymarks in the wrong direction. Thus I came to do a 2.5km warm-up loop, swinging back past Bertie (up, up, up) for attempt 2.
The right trail
Mid-run views
Back down to the valley bottom I went, this time turning the right way, taking care on the ensuing uneven, variously rooty and stony path. I only met one other person, another solo female runner, coming the other way, and the width of the path was such that I stepped off to let her past.
Subsequent route choices worked out well, such that via a forest track I returned to Bertie having covered as good as exactly the distance I was aiming for. Mick had got back just a few moments earlier, having taken a walk along the Via Verde.
Back at Bertie, I did something that I don’t believe I’ve ever done outside of the UK: I pre-booked somewhere for us to stay. The weather forecast for Thursday night until Saturday morning is for continuous rain and low temperatures (even lower than we’ve currently got, which are already significantly below average for the time of year), and if we’re going to have conditions like that then the most comfortable place to sit it out will be somewhere with electricity. So, I’ve booked an ‘economy pitch with 4A electricity’ just NE of Valencia. A four amp electric supply isn’t much, but it will be effective in stopping us from worrying about the state of the leisure battery in the absence of solar generation.
As tempting as it would have been to stay put on the Via Verde for another night, there were two arguments against: 1) we didn’t want to be associated with the collection of Dutch motorhomers who are inappropriately treating the car park as a campsite, with their washing out as well as tables, chairs and portable solar panels; and 2) I wanted to do a walking tour of Alcoy and moving to this car park put us 3km nearer to its start point.
Not wanting to move here until siesta time (although the car park was so empty at that time I suspect we wouldn’t have struggled for a space earlier), we had lunch where we were, before coming here via a detour to Lidl.
We’d negotiated our way down three-lane one-way city streets and were almost at Lidl when I said: “Haven’t we been here before? Lidl has a height barrier.”. Suddenly Mick recognised it too, and sure enough we discovered that we have been to Alcoy before, albeit on that occasion we were only driving through on our way elsewhere. Thanks to the previous recollection, we parked just around the corner, and although I did then discover we could enter the car park via the unrestricted back entrance (in fact, the reason for the restriction on the front entrance is a bit of a mystery), I didn’t summon Mick and Bertie, because I didn’t have that much on the shopping list. Ha! I bought half the shop and had to summon Mick to help me carry it.
Onwards to the walking tour: it’s part of the Heritage in Motion (HeiM) project to provide self-guided walking tours in cities across the world. There are only four countries currently involved, and only something like 12 cities. Alcoy seems an unlikely place for one (although perhaps the city is well-known within Spanish tourism, and it’s just that I’d never heard of it?), but is one of the participants. I’d downloaded the gpx file to the ViewRanger App, and also the pdf brochure, and off we set.
Apparently, due to its location in amongst the hills, Alcoy was the first place to become industrialised in Valencia, and one of the first in Spain (indeed, it would like to claim it was ahead of Barcelona and England in entering the Industrial Revolution). The legacy of its industrial past is a valley full of industrial buildings in varying states of (mainly advanced) decay. Textiles were the main products of the town (“The Halifax of Spain!” I exclaimed, observing similarities between the two places). The prosperity led to the significant development of the town, in places shoddily such that there’s much evidence of buildings having been demolished, but more notably with some grand Art Nouveau residences mainly designed by one of three architects (one of whom was born in Alcoy).
The ex-railway along which Mick and I have been exercising for the last couple of days was also (unsurprisingly) associated with the town’s industry, built by an English company to bring English coal to fuel the factories.
The town tour took us around 31 points of interest*, giving us two or three paragraphs of information about each. Thus in a city where we might only have wandered around for half an hour and just got a very high level impression of the place, we had our attention drawn to many buildings we would otherwise have missed and learnt lots of interesting stuff about the place. It’s been a good while since we last did a self-guided walking tour, and I wish we came across more of them. A thoroughly diverting way to spend an afternoon.
There was a photo in this square showing it full of tables and chairs, almost all of them full. Today only one of the eateries was open and only one couple was dining.
A couple of many buildings on the tour (chosen at random from the snaps I took, not because these were the best we saw).
Plaza de Espana
The city claims many ‘best in Spain’ accolades. They claim this bridge to be the best Art Deco bridge in the country
Decaying industrial heritage. The whole valley is full of such tumbledown mills.
The hills make a fine backdrop to the town, particularly on a sunny day. That’s an impressive rift in the hills too, on the left.
The whole city centre has these metal arches spanning the streets, between street lamps.
(*The advertised length of the route was 3.7km. I measured it as 6km.)
Weather: Not a hint of cloud seen all day. Pleasantly warm in the sun and out the wind.
We seem to have done quite a bit today. Unless I achieve a Personal Best in brevity, this could be a lengthy post.
The day started with a frost and, even though the heating had turned itself on twenty minutes before I emerged from bed, I was glad I’d made the decision last night that it would be a hot porridge day. Cold soaked oats, straight from the fridge, wouldn’t have been the best choice today.
With clear blue skies, the air soon started to warm up and by the time I set out up the Via Verde at 0930, it was comfortable to be out in a t-shirt (at least when moving at a reasonable pace).
My run didn’t start entirely well. I was only following the Via Verde for about 150m today, before branching off onto a Petit Randonee route. Down, down, down I went, past some tumble-down factory buildings, along a path and across a stream. From there I followed the clear red and white stripes of the waymarks along a cool, shaded path in the valley bottom. I’d gone about a kilometre along there before I came to realise that I’d followed the waymarks in the wrong direction. Thus I came to do a 2.5km warm-up loop, swinging back past Bertie (up, up, up) for attempt 2.
Back down to the valley bottom I went, this time turning the right way, taking care on the ensuing uneven, variously rooty and stony path. I only met one other person, another solo female runner, coming the other way, and the width of the path was such that I stepped off to let her past.
Subsequent route choices worked out well, such that via a forest track I returned to Bertie having covered as good as exactly the distance I was aiming for. Mick had got back just a few moments earlier, having taken a walk along the Via Verde.
Back at Bertie, I did something that I don’t believe I’ve ever done outside of the UK: I pre-booked somewhere for us to stay. The weather forecast for Thursday night until Saturday morning is for continuous rain and low temperatures (even lower than we’ve currently got, which are already significantly below average for the time of year), and if we’re going to have conditions like that then the most comfortable place to sit it out will be somewhere with electricity. So, I’ve booked an ‘economy pitch with 4A electricity’ just NE of Valencia. A four amp electric supply isn’t much, but it will be effective in stopping us from worrying about the state of the leisure battery in the absence of solar generation.
As tempting as it would have been to stay put on the Via Verde for another night, there were two arguments against: 1) we didn’t want to be associated with the collection of Dutch motorhomers who are inappropriately treating the car park as a campsite, with their washing out as well as tables, chairs and portable solar panels; and 2) I wanted to do a walking tour of Alcoy and moving to this car park put us 3km nearer to its start point.
Not wanting to move here until siesta time (although the car park was so empty at that time I suspect we wouldn’t have struggled for a space earlier), we had lunch where we were, before coming here via a detour to Lidl.
We’d negotiated our way down three-lane one-way city streets and were almost at Lidl when I said: “Haven’t we been here before? Lidl has a height barrier.”. Suddenly Mick recognised it too, and sure enough we discovered that we have been to Alcoy before, albeit on that occasion we were only driving through on our way elsewhere. Thanks to the previous recollection, we parked just around the corner, and although I did then discover we could enter the car park via the unrestricted back entrance (in fact, the reason for the restriction on the front entrance is a bit of a mystery), I didn’t summon Mick and Bertie, because I didn’t have that much on the shopping list. Ha! I bought half the shop and had to summon Mick to help me carry it.
Onwards to the walking tour: it’s part of the Heritage in Motion (HeiM) project to provide self-guided walking tours in cities across the world. There are only four countries currently involved, and only something like 12 cities. Alcoy seems an unlikely place for one (although perhaps the city is well-known within Spanish tourism, and it’s just that I’d never heard of it?), but is one of the participants. I’d downloaded the gpx file to the ViewRanger App, and also the pdf brochure, and off we set.
Apparently, due to its location in amongst the hills, Alcoy was the first place to become industrialised in Valencia, and one of the first in Spain (indeed, it would like to claim it was ahead of Barcelona and England in entering the Industrial Revolution). The legacy of its industrial past is a valley full of industrial buildings in varying states of (mainly advanced) decay. Textiles were the main products of the town (“The Halifax of Spain!” I exclaimed, observing similarities between the two places). The prosperity led to the significant development of the town, in places shoddily such that there’s much evidence of buildings having been demolished, but more notably with some grand Art Nouveau residences mainly designed by one of three architects (one of whom was born in Alcoy).
The ex-railway along which Mick and I have been exercising for the last couple of days was also (unsurprisingly) associated with the town’s industry, built by an English company to bring English coal to fuel the factories.
The town tour took us around 31 points of interest*, giving us two or three paragraphs of information about each. Thus in a city where we might only have wandered around for half an hour and just got a very high level impression of the place, we had our attention drawn to many buildings we would otherwise have missed and learnt lots of interesting stuff about the place. It’s been a good while since we last did a self-guided walking tour, and I wish we came across more of them. A thoroughly diverting way to spend an afternoon.
(*The advertised length of the route was 3.7km. I measured it as 6km.)
I'll put Alcoy on my list of places to visit. My flight to Spain is booked for Easter Saturday after over 2 years of being locked into OZ. Travel at last! The HEIM website is a bit of a mystery: can't find a list of the 12 towns with walking tours.
ReplyDeleteI transposed my numbers; there are actually 21 tours on the list. You'll find the list on this page, together with the links to the wikiloc page and the downloadable pdf for each:
Deletehttps://www.heimheritage.eu/basic-page/routes
If you click on the 'Click Here: List of all Routes' at the bottom of the page, it takes you to Wikiloc where you can see them all on a map.
Good to hear you've got a trip planned. I look forward to seeing where you go.