It is Friday 31 August, the last day of August and the last full day of our cruise. The ship pulls into Valencia, and we pile off onto a coach which is taking us for a morning's excursion to Roman and medieval Sagunto and the San Jose caves. "I hope he knows the way..." I say brightly, the only one daring enough (or stupid enough) to actually say it out loud.
We haven't noticed, but the excursion had been clearly labelled as a grade 3 excursion, meaning steep hills and more walking than other tours. Great stuff! Let's fly at it! However perhaps the tour guide wasn't as enthusiastic, because he stops every five paces to tell us something that we could have figured out for ourselves... Here he helpfully points out a drainpipe.
All the way from the drainpipe to halfway across the road: "These trees," he says solemnly, as we come to a row of trees planted in large pots, "have to have water brought to them." A little put out perhaps at the lack of oohs and ahhs, he moves off for another five paces...
Waiting for us at the top of what is quite a steep climb, is a Roman amphitheatre. With an easy grace (in the way he puffs and pants) he leads us up a flight of stairs to a locked gate... "Well they told me to come up here..." he grumbles as we all puff and pant all the way down, round the back of the building and then up the other side. Council workmen are hosing down the rubbish bins outside, the hosepipe coming from the ladies' toilets. One of the workmen goes in to undo it from the tap and take it out. There are a few grumbles from the ladies. Fran, who is in the queue, say "It's ok, he just wants to take his water pipe out!" Screams...
Astoundingly the amphitheatre had been rebuilt. "Ah, well, it is illegal of course," our guide tells us. "The architects have been told to dismantle all the restoration work by next January..." In a way it's a shame, but I can't agree with the way most of the Roman remains had been covered up. Sometimes I feel that a bit of restoration wouldn't go amiss to give the visitor an idea of what it may have been like in its heyday. But this should either be minimal or by way of constructing a model of how it used to look.
The accoustics are superb. I climb up the stepped seating and can still make out conversations people were having below. I'll get even with them later... We leave Sagunto and travel along some fairly rough and ready roads to visit the San Jose caves. These were formed by an underground river and the visit is by way of a boat ride, punted by a boatman.
We have a short wait before going into the caves and use it to get a drink and sit for a while. Our time comes and we make our way into the caves, getting into boats shaped so that the front and back were exactly the same. The boatmen nudge them up to the landing stage and simply swapped ends. There are 14 of us in the boat and it is a strangely silent first few minutes. Presumably the Spanish boatman doesn't speak English, and it means that the least little noise comes loud and clear.
"What was that?" a young girl gasps as a distant echoing booming is heard.
"Orcs!" I say kindly... The boat ride takes quite a while and then we all get off and troop down a fairly well-lit but narrow pathway on our own. There aren't any side turnings or alternative routes to ponder over and when we come to the other end the boat is waiting for us to embark again.
Photography isn't allowed, but then I suppose most people would have used flash and then ruined their dark vision and be bumping into other people or failing to see the bits where the ceiling came down low over the boat, requiring passengers to duck or... "Ouch!" comes a cry... Yes it's me, not taking notice of how close we are to the side of the cave...
"Where are the bats, Dad?" demands an eager boy several times.
"Never mind the bats, lad...it's the underground river monster you have to worry about..." I draw the sketch from a postcard once I am back on the Island Star.
