City of Arts and Sciences
The weather on Saturday was 70℉ and sunny - a perfect day for a long walk in Valencia’s wonderful sunken park, Turia Garden.
The park was huge, with multiple paths and plenty of room for walkers, runners, and cyclists. We walked beneath several bridges, some old, some new, all of them reminders that a river once flowed here. The paths were shaded by many different varieties of trees: oranges, palms, even bottle trees. We loved the ingenuity of Gulliver Park, a playground where children could climb and slide on the giant figure, like happy Lilliputians.
After about two miles, we reached Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences), a futuristic place that was the extreme opposite of the medieval cities we had been exploring in Spain. It was a vast complex of innovative buildings and pedestrian bridges, surrounded by brilliant blue pools. Tall concrete cones artfully disguised elevator shafts. There was an art museum, a science museum, a planetarium, and a forum for concerts and sporting events. The designers of this remarkable project were Santiago Calatrava, famous for cantilevered bridges, and Felix Candela, famous for thin concrete shells. The first building opened in 1998, and the most recent building was completed in 2009.
It was a thrill to wander through and view the structures from different angles and heights. There was something new to see around every corner.
The City of Arts and Sciences reminded me of Walt Disney Word’s EPCOT. So I was not surprised at all to learn that scenes from Disney’s Tomorrowland were filmed here in Valencia.
We still had a long walk home through the park, so we didn’t go inside any of the buildings. We will have to return another time for a closer look. It would be neat to see the City of Arts and Sciences lit up at night. Valencia is a very cool place!
