KEY POINTS:
Officially, there is a "ring of steel" around Port America's Cup. Unofficially, you can get in by taxi.
Spain is supposed to be in the grip of an extended wait for the horror to strike. The threat from Basque separatists Eta heightened recently. Spanish military intelligence warned of
an attack with a big "public impact", targeting Madrid or Valencia. This came after efforts to de-fang Eta with a negotiated peace failed and the Basque movement said it was ending its truce and rearming.
Popular fancy has it that Eta is keen to make a mark, a credible mark, to proclaim it is back to full strength. The intelligence report suggested that five Eta commando cells had been activated and had people, money and weapons for a strike.
Even before that, Eta was suspected of activity - an Eta member arrested in January on a train near the border with France was reported to have been on his way to Valencia to plan a strike on the America's Cup.
Add to that the fact that this is a country still closing the wounds of the 2004 Madrid bombings - 191 dead, 2000 injured - alleged to have been masterminded by a loose collection of terrorists from North Africa, some with al Qaeda connections.
That potential threat to the America's Cup is obvious. It is a playground of the "filthy rich"; even though the Americans aren't here, it is about as representative of American interests and money as it is possible to get; Spain had a presence in Iraq; and Valencia itself was an ancient Muslim city before Christians wrested control away.
All of this might, you would think, produce a response from the authorities that might take security to the level of intrusion that can be experienced around big sporting events in these terrorist-threatened times.
But Valencia, just now starting to crank up the temperatures as summer really arrives, seems to have a laid-back security style.
The figures and the technology are impressive - 2000 national corps and security force personnel, local police, the Guardia, 24 boats patrolling against any kind of water-borne aggression, 200 spy cameras, a perimeter protection system; underwater protection and patrols of the inner harbour to guard against limpet bombs and the like; and the usual x-rays, scanning and inspection of vehicles.
But the atmosphere in Valencia doesn't quite seem to stack up with the proud statistics. This is security, Spanish-style, although only the highly naive would imagine that the actual level of vigilance around the 32nd America's Cup is anything like as casual as it appears.
Every now and then there is a peep of a full battle-dress soldier on top of the buildings that flank Port America's Cup, armed to the teeth and obviously taking matters very seriously indeed. But the overwhelming impression is of a delightfully Valencian approach to security - typified by our first entry to the port by taxi yesterday. There is only one vehicle entry. Security guards stop cars but did so in our case with a cursory glance through the window.
We were wearing our media ID tags but they didn't even register. The car was not stopped, the boot was not opened, the interior was not searched, neither were bags. The same bag and laptop that I put through the scanner at the media checkpoint every day were ignored.
The taxi went - as all vehicles do - over a scanning pad which checks for bombs.
The technology is reputedly smart, able to detect all manner of things outside and inside the vehicles.
But it seems a rather limp set of precautions, although maybe the Spanish have just correctly judged the balance between security and making it appear as though it isn't there.
Let's hope so. Eta has killed 800 people, mostly police or politicians who oppose its quest for independence from Spain.
But for terrorists, the separatists are generally benevolent towards the public. They tend to give warning of their bombs. They are most known for kidnapping people - which can get brutal - to raise funds by ransom; selecting bigwig opponents.
They are on the warpath at the moment, keen to show that their negotiations with the government haven't weakened their resolve.
The calling-off of a previous ceasefire in late 1999 was followed by a wide-scale resumption of attacks and killings by the armed group, claiming 23 victims in 2000, or the highest number since 1992.
They were accused of breaking the ceasefire in January this year when a bomb exploded at Madrid airport, killing two people from Ecuador.
Faced with criticism, Eta responded by saying that it hadn't really broken the ceasefire because it hadn't meant to kill anyone.
Oh, well, that's all right then.
