January Adventures

Gran Canaria

The first weeks of January have been busy and quite wonderful. In the middle of moving to a new apartment (which we love), we popped over to Gran Canaria (Canary Islands) for a few days. It was warm (think 80’s), sunny, and beautiful. Not a bad way to spend a January birthday!

Of the 8 Canary Islands, Gran Canaria is the 3^rd largest (a little bigger than the city of Houston, TX) and the most biodiverse. Of course, there’s the beaches crammed with tourists in bikinis, but there’s also several kilometers of pristine sand dunes, mountains, deep ravines, volcanic calderas, cave dwellings, charming villages, and pine forest. It’s fitting that Gran Canaria has been called the world’s smallest continent with its diverse landscapes and extreme microclimates.

A Wine Adventure

As you know, we love wine! So, I booked a wine tasting tour on Gran Canaria and it was an entirely unique experience. We met our guide, José and three other oenophiles at the central market in Las Palmas (capital city of Gran Canaria). After winding our way through the beautiful countryside, we stopped at a winery to pick up a bottle or two. It turns our main destination was what José referred to as a “club” where the locals hang out to drink wine…and just be together (it’s that Spanish social thing, as always!).

The owner of the club is a vintner in his 70’s who learned wine making from his father and grandfather. He harvests the grapes himself, crushes them using the stomp-on-them-with-your-feet method, and fills about a couple barrels each year. We’re talking totally au natural – just grape juice in a barrel – from this year’s harvest. To retrieve the wine, we all filed into the garage next door where the proprietor produced a glass pitcher, bent down, and opened the cock on the front of an old oak barrel, and began filling it directly from the barrel.

José served a delicious lunch, and we sipped wine, talked, and laughed, sipped more wine (the pitcher made a couple more trips to the garage) laughed more . . . . After a couple of hours, we had made some wonderful new friends! Oh yes, and the wine was delicious: deep ruby colored, fruity, fresh, lightly tannic, about 14% ABV. What a great wine tasting.

Back in Valencia – our “secret” treasure

Meanwhile, life in Valencia we’re settling in and feeling quite proud of our new city. When we chose Valencia back in 2022, it felt as though we’d discovered a little-known European treasure. It turns out the rest of the world has caught up.

Inspiring Places to Visit

Every January, we eagerly await and then carefully study the New York Times annual “52 Places to See in . . . ” article. Well, this year, Valencia made the list!  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/travel/places-to-travel-destinations-2024.html 

This is both good news and not-so-good news. We’re already checking the cruise ship schedules to plan our day around the throngs of tourists checking out our grocery store – the amazing Mercat Centrale.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

As mentioned in the NY Times article, Valencia is the winner of the “European Green Capital Award” for 2024. This award recognizes and rewards “local action towards a transition to a greener, more sustainable future” – very cool, right? Check it out: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/urban-environment/european-green-capital-award/winning-cities/valencia-2024_en

So, pack your bags and come on over for a visit to our wonderful city. To entice you a bit, here’s the Valencia tourism site to peruse: https://www.visitvalencia.com/en 

In the meantime, we’re headed out to an artichoke festival!