A place I found by chance on the map

There are cities where I know in advance where I'm going to go, where I'm going to have lunch, and at about what time I'm going to start regretting wearing uncomfortable shoes. Valencia is just one of those places where it is easy to make a route for several days: the old town, the market, the City of Arts and Sciences, the beach, the gardens of Turia, and then for a long time to try to understand why the legs no longer want to participate in the cultural program. But one evening I was sitting at the hotel, flipping through the map without any specific purpose, and noticed a small green dot slightly off my usual route. It was called Jardín de Monforte, the Gardens of Monforte, and I had absolutely no idea what it was.

I opened the photos, looked at some pictures and thought the place looked nice, but nothing special. In Valencia, it's generally difficult to surprise a person with a beautiful garden when you have a huge Turia next to you, so at first I just wanted to close the map and forget about this find. But then my tourist curiosity kicked in, which sometimes leads me to beautiful places, and sometimes makes me go completely wrong for half an hour. This time, fortunately, the card turned out to be right.

I just wanted to see what was out there.

The next day, I went there without much expectation. And that's exactly what I liked later: I didn't go to the famous landmark, didn't stand in line, and didn't even have time to come up with a beautiful photo for my phone in advance.

The Monforte Gardens are not far from other green spaces in Valencia, but they look as if they were deliberately hidden from a person who walks too fast through the city. There is a completely different world behind the stone fence, and a small pavilion precedes the entrance. The official tourism website of Valencia also calls Monforte one of the lesser-known places in the city, and the city Park Service describes it as a neoclassical garden for walking and relaxing.

I went inside and just stood there for the first few seconds. Not because I saw something grandiose, but because I did not expect to see such a thing in this place at all. A few minutes ago, I was walking along an ordinary city street with cars, traffic lights and people in a hurry, and now I found myself among neatly trimmed bushes, marble sculptures, fountains and quiet alleys. And then I realized that I had accidentally found exactly what I was looking for, even though I hadn't even known what I was looking for before.

A small piece of another Valencia

The Monforte Gardens are designed in the neoclassical style and occupy just over 12 thousand square meters. There are sculptures, fountains, hedges, flower areas and old trees, and the garden itself is designed so that something new constantly appears around one corner.

Monforte Gardens

I especially liked the feeling that the garden wasn't trying to show itself all at once. You walk along one path, see a fountain ahead, turn off – a sculpture appears, a few more steps – and another corner opens. At some point, I realized that I had completely stopped looking at my phone. When traveling, I usually photograph almost everything that seems interesting to me, and then in the evening I find about one hundred and forty-seven identical photographs of the same building in the gallery, taken with a slight angle change. Here, I just wanted to keep going.

I almost walked by

Monforte Gardens in Valencia

The funny thing is, if I hadn't opened the map by accident, I might not have gotten here at all. I was walking through Valencia and I knew perfectly well that there was a large city park nearby, but I didn't know anything about Montfort.

That's why I like such places more than many famous attractions. When you arrive at the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum, you know in advance what you're going to see, have a rough idea of the photos, and even understand where the rest of the tourists will be standing. But here I had no expectations at all. It was almost like opening the door to a room you didn't know existed before.

The story I learned after the walk

Later, I decided to read a little about this place and found out that the history of the garden is much more interesting than I expected. Its origin is connected with a former suburban area outside of old Valencia, and in the 19th century, the Marquis de San Juan, Juan Bautista Romero, acquired the site, who commissioned architect Sebastian Monleon to turn the area into a garden. After the death of the Marquis, the garden passed to the Monforte family, and in the 20th century it became the property of the city. It opened to the public in 1973.

I especially liked to find out after the walk. Before that, I was just walking among the trees and sculptures and thought that in front of me was a beautiful old park, but then it turned out that there was quite a long story behind this beauty. However, I have one habit that I can't beat: first see the place, then admire, and only then read where I've been. That's probably why my travels sometimes feel like an investigation in which I'm the main suspect.

The most unexpected thing is silence

The silence surprised me the most. Not absolute, of course, because Valencia has not disappeared anywhere behind the stone fence, but after the noise of the city inside the garden it really becomes much calmer.

I sat down by one of the fountains and just stared at the water for a while. Someone was reading a book nearby, then a couple were talking in low voices, and somewhere else footsteps could be heard on the path.

And that's when I realized that I didn't want to go anywhere at all.

For a person who usually lives by the principle of "once you arrive, you need to see everything" during a trip, this is quite a serious achievement.

Of course, I messed up everything.

Then I decided to take some photos. This is where my traditional struggle with reality began. In the first picture, a man I hadn't noticed at all somehow got into the frame. On the second one, I cut off half of the sculpture. On the third one, everything was fine, except for my finger, which somehow ended up in front of the camera. I looked at the result, sighed, and decided that maybe the universe was trying to hint: stop taking pictures, just sit. Sometimes she's right, but it still turned out to be some good shots, in my opinion.

A place where I took my time

I spent a lot more time in the garden than I intended. Initially, I thought that I would go in for twenty minutes, see what kind of place it was, take some photos and continue the route.

As a result, twenty minutes turned into an hour, and then I found that I was already starting to remember where the nearest cafe was and whether I could buy something cold there. This is probably the most accurate indicator of how much I liked the place: if I start looking for food after a walk, it means that the trip is going well. Officially, the Monforte Gardens are now free, and now the city indicates for them the opening hours of 10:00-20:00 from March to October and 10:00-18:00 from November to February.

Why did I remember this particular place?

That day, I realized one simple thing: the most interesting places to travel are not always located where there are large signs. Sometimes they appear on the map as a small green dot that you notice completely by accident. At first you think, "Okay, I'll come and see," and then you sit by the fountain and realize that this is the moment you'll remember better than another must-see.

The Monforte Gardens have become just such a place for me. I did not plan to come here, did not read about them before the trip, and did not even include them in the original itinerary for Valencia. I just opened the map one evening, saw a green spot and decided to check what was there.

Now I'm deliberately leaving room for accidents.

After this story, I changed my attitude towards routes a bit. I used to think that a good route was when everything was pre–planned: where to go in the morning, where to have lunch, what to watch in the afternoon, and where to go in the evening.

Now I make sure to leave a few hours just for randomness.

Because it was an accident that once led me to a small neoclassical garden in the middle of Valencia, where I suddenly slowed down, stopped looking at my watch and for the first time all day just sat by the fountain.

And if you ever visit Valencia, Spain, don't be surprised if the map suddenly shows you some green dot that you've never heard of before. If I were you, I wouldn't be in a hurry to close it. Sometimes there is a place behind such a point, which you then remember much more often than the sights for which you came to the city in the first place.