I have been excited to see Valencia for many years, and had so many friends pass through who said they love it that I booked a one week trip there over my daughter’s school holiday.
Originally I booked an Airbnb in the centre of town for the week. I rarely have a bad feeling about travel but for some reason I had some sense of foreboding this time. For that reason I did further investigation and saw that hotels further down the coast offered more child friendly activities so I decided to land in Valencia one night and then head to the coast for four days and come back to Valencia on the 31st for four days of halloween and city activities.
My daughter and I left London last Saturday and arrived at Valencia airport to grey skies and light rain. That Sunday morning we got up to very heavy rain, but pressed on to the bus to Denia. When arriving after two hours of driving through heavy rain, we got completely soaked on leaving the bus. We ran into the nearest place to the bus stop which was Gula restaurante. It was raining too hard to go anywhere so we sat all late afternoon into the evening eating and chatting with the friendly waiter. I don’t know what it is every time I come to Spain the food tastes beyond amazing. I looked at the forecast and thought even if it rains all week I can eat myself to death. Eventually at night time we took a short taxi ride to our hotel since it was still raining heavily. I only thought about myself and how inconvenient it was that it was raining, not about the fact people’s lives might be in danger.
The next day the sun came out, and my friend Sonja Morgenstern and her son joined us in Denia. They had flown in from Alicante and had a hire car so we drove around exploring the different beaches and land marks in the area.
Later that day reports began to flood in about the disastrous impact of the floods from the previous weekend. I could see how the soil is porous and not able to retain much water and even in Denia itself there were large patches of road where the water wasn’t draining off.
On Halloween day (yesterday) we had planned to drive to Valencia to see the famous aquarium @oceanicainmersiva and the science museum. I had booked the Barceló Valencia hotel for four days more of sightseeing. We were aware of the flooding but presumed since it was a flash flood it had passed.
Google maps showed it should be possible to get there and tickets were available online. We set out early and had a smooth drive. The highway was clear but on the side of it were flooded orchards, car parks with cars floating in them, mud flats and drowned houses.
The drive was clear until around 6 miles from the city centre when the traffic came to a complete halt. We googled side roads to go down and found one side road but it stopped us short with a little red tape. Young boys were diverting the traffic from the potential off road. Groups of them were roaming the street with their brooms and generally looking useful. Upturned motor cycles and cars were lying behind the warehouses and we were driving around, swerving away from them.
After driving in circles trying to get into Valencia we realised there was no way to reach the hotel due to apocalyptic levels of traffic and clear up of the disaster going on.
After passing through the mudslide of a road that was closed off by a red and white plastic partition four times, we realised this was pointless and potentially dangerous. There were no police in the area to give directions so many cars were driving pointlessly in circles like us.
When an alert sounded on all the phones, we decided to head back to @deniaturismo. The alert was in Spanish and I had a local boy translate it for me. UNLESS ESSENTIAL! NATIONAL EMERGENCY in place in the area, bodies still being recovered…
One could call it a real Halloween horror half term…for many it was much much worse. Our kids ate their Halloween candy on the road back to Denia and that had at least kept them distracted that morning. I managed to secure a refund from the Barcelo Valencia Hotel.
Timing in this case was everything and it was so fortunate I decided to leave Valencia on the day of the flooding for the beach. If I hadn’t decided to break up our city break and make it a beach and city holiday, who knows what would have happened. We are praying for the poor victims of those who were less fortunate.
I now have no idea if I will be able to make my flight back on Monday morning. I find it very likely that public buses will not be running in two days time back to Valencia where I flew in. Swiss Air told me they will not reroute my flight from Alicante as my ticket is non-refundable. Thanks Swiss Air! A bit of sensitivity to a national emergency might have been nice!
Check out our quotes about the Environment
And our blog post on eco-friendly travel tips
