Valencia's Market Garden

Go to any site on Valencia and somewhere you will see photos of Calatrava’s stunning City of Arts and Sciences (although they won’t all tell you that it was the late Félix Candela who designed the Oceonogràfic). A mixture of elegance in architecture and searingly modern scultpture, the complex has become the icon of the Valencia and is seen as one of the foremost examples of modern Spanish urban development, praised and pontificated over world-wide. What would surprise many, if the were to take a short walk beyond the El Saler shopping centre, opposite the CAC, is just how close they are to 'La huerta', Valencia’s market gardens that still supply much of the vegetables that feed the city. Walk along the narrow irrigation canals and turn your back on the urban landscape, and you could be deep in rural Spain of fifty years ago.
Derek Workman