In Valencia the river used to run right through the center of the city. A devastating flood killed many folks and the river was diverted south of the city. What to do with the old river bed? Make a large urban park, that is what. Along this old riverbed are the futuristic buildings of the City of Arts and Sciences. This complex is comprised of seven or eight massive futuristic buildings. Starting with the Queen Sophia Palace of Arts whish contains the opera house and four concert halls. It is a huge building and although it is usually compared to a Star War's Storm Trooper helmet, I think it looks more like a weevil with a long probiscis. Other buildings include the Hemispheric, L'Umberacle the sculpture garden, an aquarium and so much more. A full day could be spent here going from site to site. We wandered, visited only the insides of a couple buildings and then wandered some more. Fantastico!
There were many well thought out pieces
Flowers to smell
Roses
The probiscis of the weevil extends down and to the right
All the good designs are from nature
More off in the distance to hike to
The scale is massive, at 75 meters this is a 17 story tall building
Nice pools of water
Cleaning the brilliant blue water is a worker to the left
An army of maintenance folks were working everywhere
Give me more mosaic
A confusion of modernism
A dizzying array of structural bits
My neck was starting to protest
The hemisphere on the right
An IMAX theater inside
A tourist mecca
Bent metal
Huge slabs of concrete seem to float in mid-air
Getting chameleon vibes from this angle
More workers
Way up there!
Workers paradise
Having a blast
Everything is gleaming and bright so we are in shadow in comaprison
A Disney movie, set in the future, was filmed here
Now I see a badger shape
Cantilevered
The blue of the lake was brilliant
A huge playground for concrete
Lets not forget the steel
Another worker in waders
A giant could play these stings like a harp
At times we felt like we were inside the bones of a huge dinosaur
The seagulls like it too
It could be a sundial
The CaxaForum, another multi purpose building
Oh my, look how far off it stretches
On and on
A garden of plants and sculptures inside this structure
The lone cone
What a delight
