Valencia - Day Two

I had an amazing day at the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias or City of the Arts and  Sciences. The Valencia City Fathers have turned the former riverbed of the River Turia into a 350,000 square metre expanse and let the internationally renowned, locally born architect, Santiago Calatrava, loose to design iconic linear buildings and structures of enormous size and shape. The Spanish sculptor, Jiménez Deridia, has added to this unique architectual enclave by embellishing the promenades with his round and ovid shapes in black marble. The complex comprises the Oceanogråfic, an underwater city featuring the major oceans and seas of the planet, the Science Museum where both kids and adults run riot with the hands on exhibits. Here it is strictly forbidden not to touch! I had great fun there at the European Space Agency,  where I was strapped into a Space Capsule and launched into Space. The gravitational pull was enormous. There are other areas such as the Agora, a multipurpose space, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, a majestic opera house and the Hemisfėric, an Imax theatre, where I viewed the superb National Geographic film of Jerusalem showing both its genesis and the different people and their cultures living side by side, but not together, in this ancient city. Some years ago when I was working in Israel as a volunteer on a kibbutz in the Negev Desert I had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem and the film brought back vivid memories for me of such things as praying at the Weeping Wall with devout Jews, walking along the Via Dolorosa and entering the Souk through the Damascus Gate. My day at the Ciudad was great fun. On the way home I found a very interesting 16th century church, called the Basilica of Saint Augustin. It had one long nave which was supported by a series of enormous square brick pillars on either side which were linked to each other by arches and which in turn formed side chapels. A wonderful use of space and material!