THE VALENCIA EDIT Real life. Real people. Mostly Russafa. Hi from Russafa—where the streets are loud, apartments disappear before you have finished reading the listing, and a complete stranger can somehow become the person you call for wine on Friday. This is the first proper edition of this newsletter, so let me tell you what you’ll find here. Guapa Girl began with women finding one another and building real friendships in Valencia. But life here is bigger than pretty ca

Dénia was a bubble. We had the sea, the pool, beautiful views, good food, cafés and a life that felt relatively easy. When we first arrived, the very first apartment I walked into became our home. The school came easily too. Looking back, I think Dénia gave me a completely unrealistic idea of how moving within Spain worked. Then our landlady decided to sell the apartment. And I thought: Maybe this is the moment. It’s time for something different. What I didn’t understand was

Slowly, slowly, Valencia started growing on us. We started enjoying the different neighbourhoods, the beach, the streets, the little corners we recognised from before. Places stopped feeling completely unfamiliar. We started knowing where we were going, which areas we liked, which ones we didn’t, where we wanted to return and where we probably wouldn’t. It still doesn’t feel like smooth sailing. It isn’t a city where everyone is smiling and thrilled that you have arrived, wel

I don’t think I will ever forget the day I arrived in Valencia not as a tourist, but as someone staying in an Airbnb with the very serious intention of finding a home. It felt completely different. Two months earlier, I had come to Valencia as a tourist. We walked through Gran Vía and Russafa, and I remember standing in the middle of a little square somewhere in Russafa, although at the time I didn’t even properly understand the neighbourhoods. I just liked that street. I lik

Moving to Valencia was actually quite unexpected. But then again, most things in my life are. My life has never been a carefully planned sequence of well-organised events. Things usually happen because they are supposed to happen. Because something has run its course. Because suddenly, somehow, it is time. And I guess with Dénia, it was time. Dénia was our soft, cosy, sunny, azure-coloured bubble. A beautiful little bubble filled with retired expats living what looked like ve