Hello archi lovers!
We think we know a place, a city that is so familiar to us but suddenly one day choosing another street and with some time we felt surprised after looking around and we see an open door and then curiosity pushes us to look out.
We find in the downtown of the city of Valencia in Spain, an architectural and above all historical jewel, it is the Church of San Juan del Hospital, which is much more than a church.
The information panels already tell us that it is a church, the oldest in the third largest city in the country. But incredible this was also an old medieval cemetery from the 13th century and a hospital and hostel for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago, built on Roman remains of the circus of the ancient city.
And nowadays there is a museum, a store and some offices. An amazing wonder, and of course a historical complex named "asset of cultural interest".
And we enter timidly but with amazement, a kind of hall where we read all that shocking information that makes us want to know more, and on the other side some paintings and many made with tiles welcome us too, a lot of history and art on those walls already at the first steps...
But when we look ahead, under the pointed arch, an open space flanked by potted plants calls us to continue forward. While still on the other side in a hole, a small altar with the statue of a virgin and candles that illuminate the prayers of many.
We begin to enter the enclosure, and on the left is the entire medieval wall of the church that we will enter, but it is a pleasant and quiet place, with plants and beautiful decorations, humble stone rosettes on one of the doors.
While on the other side there is a more modern part with a porticoed area with more arches, where the store and the office are, at the back there are more rooms that we do not know what they are and at the back the small museum room. We turn 180 degrees and look at the entire open area before entering the church on the left.
We impatiently entered the part of the church and came across two large paintings and we turned our heads and to the left, the nice church.
A simple, silent, medieval, robust but also elegant and imposing church, with the serene light that enters through its elongated windows and shows us that Gothic style touch that it acquired in the renovations, fusing all the eras that the complex contains.
And there are decorated niches, spaces dedicated to religious sculptures or paintings, a large confessional area and small altars. A place to explore because we find different artistic elements to observe.
After the religious, artistic and historical ecstasy we go back out to the outside patio and the perspective and view change, although from that side we also see that there are more plants, but some windows that we do not know what they contain but if we now turn to the left, there is a door which shows us a room with archaeological and artistic remains, it is a small museum with pieces that have been found there in the different centuries of existence of such a peculiar architectural complex.
And this fleeting, spontaneous and surprising visit ends here, we return to the same outdoor patio, to the plants from before and to those arches that now show us the way out of such a fascinating historical place.
For the rest of the complex we will have to come another day, other parts seem to have a specific schedule, but we have been able to enjoy without planning it and almost in solitude since almost no one was there, a place in the heart of a big city that precisely contains those walls almost all periods of history, art and architecture that have formed the city itself.
A lot of history, a lot has happened there, and now finally we have also been there, we are part of history...
