Immaculate Martinez | Valencia (EFE).- The president of CEV Valencia and the Valencian Association of Business and Professional Women (EVAP), Eva Blasco (Valencia, 1964), explains to EFE that traveling is her passion, that she does it more on New Years in summer, and reveals the most exquisite dish he has tried on his travels.
CEO of the travel agency Europa Travel (founded by her father, Vicente Blasco Infante, who died in 2016), she is also vice president of the European Association of Travel Agencies and Tour Operators (ECTAA), among other responsibilities.
QUESTION: What was your first trip outside of Spain?
ANSWER: When I was 4 or 5 years old, I went to London, I don’t remember very well, just for photos. My first plane trip was to Blanes (Girona) in July (he was born in March). At the age of 12 I started going to France alone for summer language courses and I did it for five years. In the sixties it was difficult to travel, but in a traveling family, travel was prioritized over other expenses.
Q: And the last one, with whom?
A: The last big trip I took was on New Year’s Eve 2020 with my son to Tanzania, and the most recent one to Riga (Latvia) in June.
Q: Will you be doing any big trips this summer?
A: No, I usually travel more on New Years. For family reasons, because in summer there are more people, and I like to spend it quietly in Calicanto with my mother. Last year I did not take a New Year’s trip with my son, I wanted to have a great New Year’s Eve with his friends, and now he is turning 18 and we will see if he still wants to travel with me. We have both visited San Francisco, Lapland, Brussels, New York, Paris, the Italian Alps… on New Year’s Eve.
Q: Your love for traveling comes from your father. What lessons did you inherit from your mother?
A: My father was a passionate traveler, but my mother also likes to travel very much, they were very similar in that. From her I have a taste for cinema, she is a great cinephile, and for reading.
Q: With which woman/women would you partner to travel to a destination you have pending?
A: In the past I have traveled with my mother, the two of us alone, to Central Europe, Colombia, Greece.
Now she is of a certain age and I would have to discard her, for her, not for me. I have traveled a lot with Mercedes Tejero, manager of the Spanish Confederation of Travel Agencies, with whom I have an excellent relationship and with whom I would continue to travel.
Q: The profile of the best tourist is…
A: The person who wants to live the destination without limitations, wants to know the reality of that culture, wants to try the local food, local wines, wants to live the local experience. We should not think that ours is the best, but live an authentic experience.
Q: In your best summer, is there room for the “dolce far niente”?
A: Yes, and I also need it. As I usually travel more in other seasons, in summer I like to lie in the sun, do nothing or take a book and read and read.
Q: What music do you accompany those relaxing moments with?
A: I have remained more stuck in the past, I like to listen to Joaquín Sabina, Serrat, Ana Belén, Alejandro Sanz, combined with classical music. Queen and Elton John too.
Q: What is the best dish you have tasted in your wanderings around the world?
A: In China, a lacquered duck. I don’t like chicken or duck skin, but I will remember that dish all my life, the most exquisite thing I’ve ever tasted. I have asked for lacquered duck many times in many places and I have never found that again.
Q: Is Spain the best country to live?
A: In all parts of the world it depends on the environment, on the relationships you establish.
I like Valencia for its medium size, it is not large but it is not small to the point of being suffocating. The medium size allows you a quality of life that, for example, New York does not have, although it is an exciting city that I am in love with.
You can find other places like Spain, I will not say that it is the best place in the world to live. I know places where I would not live and, on the contrary, where you could find me: San Francisco, Cape Town, Tel Aviv.
Q: Do you have books pending for this summer?
A: The last one I have read is “Twenty three photographs” by Sonia Valiente, which I recommend. She has made me fall in love with “Wild Swans” by Jung Chang, which tells the story of 20th century China through the grandmother, the mother and the daughter. I have pending the “Africanus” trilogy, by Santiago Posteguillo. And I like authors like the Japanese Haruki Murakami and the Greek Petros Márkaris.
Q: And in cinema?
A: I went to the movies a lot, since the pandemic I go a lot less and it’s a shame, because the cinema on the big screen is not the same as at home. The last movie I’ve seen is “The worst person in the world”. I like European cinema and American movies. “Tess”, by Roman Polanski, marked me. I also like Asian and Korean cinema.
Q: You speak English, French and Italian, are you tempted to learn another language?
A: I would like to, but I don’t have time. I studied some Russian in a course in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), but right now I don’t know anything and I would like to get it back. I would also like classical Greek with modern and recycle French, which I rarely use.