Firebirds in Valencia

Firebirds in Valencia

by friend Jackie Halliday

One of the joys of traveling is that you get to see and experience things over and above what you expect. I've always loved Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird. And here it was -a Scarlet Ibis! What a beautiful bird. It was in the aviary of the Oceanographic Centre built on the river bed  that used to wind through Valencia. The river has been diverted around the city and in its place is the reason for our visit. Valencia is known as the City of Arts and Sciences  - a  stunning complex of modern buildings including an Opera House, Science Museum, IMax theatre, Agora, and the Oceanographic centre. The Opera House is equivalent to the Sydney Opera House including being covered with white glazed mosaic tiles.  Photos don't really do the complex justice as you can only get  one building at a time. In the centre is another stunning building called the Agora (in Ancient Greece and Rome the Agora was the marketplace) about which we could find very little information. It is shaped like a clam shell standing up and is clad in glazed cobalt blue mosaic tiles.

Back to the Scarlet Ibis. There it was, sitting large as life on its nest in the middle of mangroves. Red amongst the green. I couldn't take my eyes off it. The aviary is also inhabited by Royal Spoonbills and Pink Spoonbills as well as one lonely Purple Swamphen, aka a Pukeko! We said Kia Ora but it didn't respond. Probably speaks Spanish.  The birds were very tame and I got some fantastic photos, although it was a bit sad to see these lovely birds confined to an, albeit very large, aviary. I'll have to do some research and find out where their natural habitat is. I did. Here's the link to the Wikipedia entry.   We spent ages in there just watching. At one stage I was eyeballed by a curious pink spoonbill.


The whole Oceanographic Centre was very large with areas for different ocean zones of the world including the  Antarctic, with a display of Gentoo and King penguins, like at Kelly Tarlton's. Although there wasn't a snowcat, there were two viewing tunnels without the travelator. This meant people could just sit on the sides and watch the fish. The dome extended much closer to the ground making it easier for children especially, to see. Two sea creatures that we hadn't seen before were a sunfish and a baluga whale. The sunfish was most strange, moving slowly along hardly moving a muscle, only spurting into action when another fish started to nibble its top fin. The Baluga whale is very pale, almost white and has no dorsal fin. It spent most of its time swimming around upside down scratching its back on the rocks and bottom of the aquarium. It had a strange snubbed nose, a bit like the new double decker Airbus A380.

We were surprised to see that they had a dolphin show. Even though these are very un PC now, it was quite spectacular. The trainers got in the water with the dolphins and performed all sorts of manouvres.

The Science building contained interactive exhibits very much like the one in Brisbane. They are great for adults and children alike, to demonstrate various aspects of physics, chemistry  and biology.  The first one we saw was about superheroes, how Spiderman climbs walls etc. Our grandsons would have loved it. Did you know that the thread in a spider's web is 5 times stronger than Kevlar - the material used in bullet proof vests? One of the most popular exhibits was a glass case with chicken eggs in various stages of hatching. So simple yet so effective. They even had a Zoe's House which our, then, 3 year old grandson first experienced at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. It is a construction site for children (up to 6 yrs) where they have to cooperate to build a building. Numbers are controlled by the availability of hard hats and safety vests. No parents allowed, but they can watch. I feel this type of museum would be fantastic on Auckland's waterfront.

Valencia's old city had wider streets edged with beautiful buildings with ornate wrought iron balconies. The day we left was the anniversary day of Valencia province which they celebrated with a big parade, including bands and everyone dressed in national costume. We only had two nights/one day in Valencia and felt we could have had another day.
Going north on the train along the coast to Figueres we occasionally had a glimpse of the sea. We hope it is not too cold for a swim in the Med but I fear it may be so.