On my way to Valencia’s city centre for the Fallas festivities, I got talking with a Spaniard from Asturias in the north of Spain. Hailing from the mountain countryside, surely he could tell me a thing or two about escaping the city on the only spare day I had. La Albufera, he said, es muy bonita. I was sold. By the time I got on the bus that would take me to the south of Valencia, it was almost lunch time. I feasted on glimpses of the charming countryside from the window. The rice paddies had just been harvested, and shone a golden brown. A small river meandered through farms of potato. Men and women strolled through their fields, some watering them, others basking in the warm afternoon sun. Small thatched huts reminded me of villages in India. A paved road ran alongside the fields, and cars raced past in striking contrast to the casual pace of life here. The bus stopped at El Saler, indicated on the map in blue. Across the road, I found myself in a pine forest with a …