Light stimulates in the profundities of the human brain sensations that have little to do with reason. The sensation of pleasure brought by a shimmering day on the beach has been depicted better than anyone else by JoaquÃn Sorolla in his paintings; that feeling of pleasure, those slackened arms and legs sprawled on the Malvarrosa beach. Light invades everything, livens up a lunch composed of A-Banda paella, paella with shellfish, juicy paella…, dozens of ways of preparing a rice dish that is so simple and yet so exquisite. The Mediterranean, charismatic, imbued with history, in Valencia gathers the exotic touch of the enormous palm plantations and the cold touch of centuries-old stone, like that which was used to build the Lonja Exchange, the ancient sailors’ recruitment centre that reminds us that the Mediterranean was and is business, barter, exchange of merchandise and knowledge. Valencia has grown in the shelter of an almost blinding light. It did so from the times of the Roman occupation. From the ruins of the Roman forum founded by Junius Brutus in what is today the Plaza de la Virgen to the City of the Arts & Sciences, the city has transformed itself according to the rhythm marked by the constant business activity. The Marqués de Dos Aguas and Poeta Querol areas congregate all the international brands and luxury trade marks. From the Phoenician traders through to the consumer society of the 21st century, Valencia has been reinvented a thousand times. Its latest transformation, meditated and grandiose, is the work of a native architect, Santiago Calatrava, in whose emblematic work is concentrated Valencia’s ambition to keep up with all that is avant-garde. In the old course of the Turia river, a new city within another city rises in a display of angles, as brilliant as the light that falls so generously over the Mediterranean.
