From a Bubble into the Ghetto...
Updated: Sep 1
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 liked the corner. I liked the café. I loved the architecture of the building opposite me and the fact that there was a school just across the road.
And I said, almost jokingly, “Soon I’m going to live here.”
The funny thing is, I had absolutely no intention of moving to Valencia at that point.
Two months later, I was back.
My landlady had announced that she was selling the beautiful apartment where we had lived for two years in Dénia. Primera línea, sea view, pool practically under my nose, beach nearby, and my biggest daily dilemma being: pool, beach or chiringuito?
And suddenly, instead of that, I arrived in Valencia with suitcases and children and the vague idea that somewhere in this huge city we were going to find our new home.
The first shock was the roughness.
We had chosen an Airbnb without really knowing Valencia. On the map, it looked close enough to Russafa and the centre.
In reality, when I arrived with my suitcase, I genuinely thought: where on earth have I brought us?
The walls were covered in graffiti. There was construction everywhere. New railway works. Drilling. Dust. Traffic. Smog.
Did I mention the noise?
There was a lot of noise.
And all of this in about 35-degree heat.
I remember looking around and thinking:
What have I done?
The children, of course, had a completely different reaction.
They were fascinated that we could just walk onto the street and catch a taxi. That alone felt exciting to them. In Dénia, life was beautiful, but much more like countryside life. Here suddenly there were buses, taxis, people everywhere, shops everywhere, movement everywhere.
They wanted to see everything.
And slowly, so did I.
The days passed. We walked through the centre. We saw beautiful buildings, monuments, enormous squares, tiny streets, markets, cafés, old façades, palm trees, modern architecture.
There were things we loved immediately.
There were also things we really didn’t.
Maybe July and August are simply the worst possible months to arrive in Valencia and try to understand whether you want to live here.
In July and August, you want Dénia. Jávea. Moraira.
Beautiful colours. A cocktail in your hand. The beach in front of you and your feet in the sand.
We had done exactly the opposite.
We left that life and arrived in a hot, noisy city while everyone sensible seemed to be escaping it.
And then there were the people.
Valencia felt much more international than Dénia. There were people from everywhere. But I also started noticing a tension I had never really felt before.
I kept reading discussions about foreigners changing neighbourhoods, pushing rental prices higher and making it harder for local people to afford homes. People talked about apartments becoming tourist rentals, neighbourhoods changing, rents going up and Valencia becoming overcrowded.
And when you are arriving as exactly one of those foreigners looking for an apartment, you become very aware of it.
It was uncomfortable.
In Dénia, I had barely thought about being an expat.
Here, suddenly, I did.
That was probably the biggest difference.
Valencia was beautiful, but the beauty came with rough edges.
There was incredible architecture next to graffiti. Gorgeous neighbourhoods next to streets I didn’t particularly want to walk through twice. International energy alongside frustration about tourism and housing. Beautiful cafés, noisy construction, history, traffic, palm trees, dust.
Everything seemed to exist at the same time.
And slowly I understood something.
This was no longer the bubble.
This was a real city.
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