A Few of the Streets

We have found that walk is a perfectly acceptable way to see about the city. Nothing is really that far...20 minutes perhaps. One of the streets we walked is Carrer de Ribera. Those of you with a bit of Spanish under your belts (?) will recognize that it is not Calle for street. This is because there is a pretty thorough mixing of Spanish and Catalan here. Often store signs are in both languages. Thus, we find street signs in Catalan.



The mixing of the languages along with the differences between Spanish in Spain and Mexico (E learned Mexican Spanish ages ago) means that after "hello, how are you?", "good day/afternoon/night", and a few numbers, we are stuck speaking loud and slow and pointing. We have been part of several conversation (monologues) where there were about 7-8 words that E could understand. Now we are on an adventure.

The upside is that the adventure is filled with places serving really good food. Ribera is a pedestrian street with lots of restaurants.

There are also street performers.

One of the main streets is Carrer de Sant Vicent Màrtir. Along this street is more alleys with food. These people really like to eat.

We have discovered dozens of places that sell quinceanera and communion dresses and suits. Some of these dresses are fairly amazing.

Saint Vincent the Martyr street is important in another way. This street runs along what was once the Roman road along the coast. Hence, we find such markers in the street telling us that is is also Emperor Augustus' way.

Not far from our flat is Carrer de Guillem de Castro. Here we found a small park with laden orange (Valencia oranges anyone?) trees. We see these trees all over town and they are all filled with bright orange fruit. Not bad for January, eh?