A Historical Strange Garden: Ciudad Jardín La Gerencia

Hello people!

We can discover interesting places without traveling long distances or many kilometres. Sometimes trips close by, to almost familiar places can also surprise us or we can learn something, or simply enjoy. That's what travelling is all about, right?

So now that I don't travel like before, I focus on exploring surroundings with a different perspective, and putting emphasis on the good and beautiful things that those other places that are not so popular or that most people don't even know about also have.

This time it's a park, well a simple garden in a small city, which is strange and different from others. To start off, during these days there is an open-air art exhibition of some of the most important paintings in the history of art that the Prado Museum in Madrid is hosting, and it has sent some reproductions, art also travels. And to see more here is my post about said exhibition: The Prado Museum travels to an open-air park!

And I wanted to tell you more about this garden called Ciudad Jardín La Gerencia. Because it is original and it hardly looks like a garden, because there are houses inside it, it is a small city inside a garden.

Yes, there are houses, although most of them are boarded up and unused. Why? Firstly, because the garden is undergoing renovation, which is slow due to politicians and their constant inefficiency, among other things. And because these houses have a certain historical value, even though they seem very modern.

These houses belonged mostly to engineers and qualified people who worked until the 1980s in the blast furnaces (altos hornos) in the port of Sagunto. Workers from other regions of Spain came from the 1950s, many from the north, and they were accommodated in many houses that were built because there was hardly a city in itself. Houses were built for all social levels, and in other parts, nearby, we see other types of houses for more humble workers. And next door, outside the garden, there are other houses that belonged to managers and people with a higher economic level. And all these white houses belonged to the highest-level qualified workers, many engineers and managers too, hence the name La Gerencia (The Management).

Then, in the 1980s, politicians with their lies dismantled all the heavy industry in the country and forced everything to close. The city entered into a great economic crisis and depopulation. Decades later, it has been readapting to reality and has been growing again, but this area of ​​houses with its own garden has remained, which is now public and can be visited by everyone. A garden that is pleasant with lots of trees, wide spaces and a beautiful fountain, with typical tiles of the time, very characteristic and nice.

And I hope they finish restoring it, and that these houses are useful, possibly public, since it is an enclosed park and I don't think they can be used as private homes now. But it is curious and original to be inside a garden where you can also walk through streets of houses, and now they also do cultural activities in them. At times it gives the sensation of an abandoned city, but it is not something disturbing, because the landscape and the area are pleasant, it is simply, weird.

I hope that it has caught your attention at least, and that we continue traveling with our minds active to learn and our eyes full of desire to observe all our beauty around us, so interesting, sometimes strange and always inspiring.

Sagunto Port, Spain 🇪🇸❤️Europe

Thanks for reading! Have an amazing and nice day.

The text is totally mine and the photos too, by ©Duvinca - No AI