Eating

Generally in Spain ‘almuerzo’ means lunch. In Valencia it’s a mid-morning meal eaten roughly 10-11am. For locals that sits between their light breakfast and the actual main midday meal. Typical almuerzo, and that’s what I did this morning in a little bar outside the old town, consists of a bocadillo, or filled roll, and a glass of beer or wine and coffee.

More than anything else the Valencian almuerzo adds to my on-going astonishment that all Spaniards are not obese given how much they eat and drink. I continue to wonder, without evidence, that a light evening meal is the trick of it. But that said, there is continual snacking so maybe it’s about the quality of the food instead of the quantity or frequency.

And of course if you go out for a proper meal in the evening, as I did with colleagues from school this evening, you don’t even sit down to your three-course meal until 8:30.

Dinner was down by Valencia’s enormous beaches – it was nice to get the tram out of the old town for the first time this visit.  Walking along the foreshore still has you about half a kilometre from the distant sea. And the hundreds of beach volleyball courts are interestingly back-dropped by the cranes of the city’s working port.