Sitting in a bar, at the bar, eating tapas. Waiter just poured a round of shots from a frozen bottle of some sort of Valencian liquor. As he swung out from behind the bar towards the table of 10 young men, we caught snatches of a song hummed under his breath.

And then the power of suggestion kicked in.

= random daily 2 pm fireworks, just because. The sun is out again, briefly it looks like, and thousands of people have collected in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento. Five minutes of LOUD.

Fireworks here (as part of the Fallas, anyway) are not judged by color but by sound. Done right, you’re supposed to feel the ground tremble. 

Right next to the Catedral, on Placa de la Verge (beautiful stone, wet from the rain) –

is the Basilica de la Mare de Déu dels Desamparats. That’s Valènciano for Mother of God of the Dispossessed. She is a key figure in Valencian Catholic identity.

The bascilica is (at the risk of understatement) a chapel –

– and we walked in right as a choral mass (sung by the boys choir) was starting:

Leaving the church proper and entering through the next door down took us to the museum, which encompasses the entire upper gallery around the chapel. We found ourselves virtually alone with 500 years of manuscripts and art dedicated to the cult:

A hidden gem. This is very typical Valencian tile work in one of the upper corridors:

A few more photos from K

Seemingly overnight the city has sprouted buñuelo stands everywhere you turn. Buñuelos are a fried doughnut made (at least in theory) from dough made with squash (calabacín). I suspect that in practice they’re made with the same 50 kilo bags of powdered mix as the churros the stalls also sell.

We tried a few from “our” bakery and decided they were chewy and interesting, but thought maybe they would be better freshly fried. We decided to try a few more from the stand outside a church, for comparison purposes (really, for research only), but noticed that the health inspector, large digital thermometer in hand, was in the process of shutting them down. Oops. Dodged one there?