Since flying back from Paris in early February 2020, we basically stayed home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the last two years, we got fully vaccinated and boosted, washed our hands raw, and wore KN95 masks everywhere except in open spaces. We continued to test negative after a few close exposures to COVID-19, so all the precautions seemed to be working. (Fingers crossed.) It was time to return to Europe.

As soon as we began looking for an apartment in Spain, one jumped out at us. It was in Valencia (visitvalencia.com), a city we wanted to know better but where we had already discovered that the food was fantastic. When we saw a spacious one-bedroom literally across the street from the Mercado Central, we leapt at it. It was kismet for two people who write as the Hungry Travelers. We traded a bunch of frequent flyer miles for tickets and set out to Valencia to take advantage of the apartment’s discount for a month-long stay.

And here we are. That’s the marvelous central market above, as viewed from our living room window. Below is a collage of images of the apartment. So begins a four-week sojourn into the food and wine of Spain’s Levante, where the Moors first introduced rice and the Valencianos returned the favor by inventing paella.