Valencia is Spain’s third city and arguably its most underrated. It has a long Mediterranean coastline, a historic old town, Europe’s largest indoor market, a cathedral that claims to hold the Holy Grail, a nine-kilometre park running through the middle of the city on the bed of a redirected river, and a futuristic cultural complex that is one of the more striking pieces of architecture built anywhere in Europe in the past thirty years. It also invented paella, which is either a reasonable claim to fame or an impossible burden depending on how much you like the conversation that follows. Visitors who go to Barcelona and Madrid and skip Valencia are consistently missing something.
A little history
Valencia was founded by the Romans in 138 BC as Valentia Edetanorum and grew steadily as a trading port on the Mediterranean coast. The Moors took the city in 711 and held it for the better part of five centuries — a period that shaped the city’s architecture, its irrigation systems, and elements of its language and culture in ways that remain visible. James I of Aragon retook the city in 1238 and the Kingdom of Valencia was established as a distinct entity within the Crown of Aragon. The fifteenth century was Valencia’s golden age: it was then the largest city on the Iberian peninsula, a major centre of silk trading and commercial finance, and prosperous enough to build the Silk Exchange and endow the institutions that still give the old city much of its character. The River Turia — which runs, or rather ran, through the city — flooded catastrophically in 1957, killing more than eighty people. The government’s solution was to divert the river around the southern edge of the city. The old riverbed was left empty for years before the city turned it into what is now the Turia Gardens, nine kilometres of parkland running from the western edge of the city to the sea. It is one of the better planning decisions of the twentieth century.
What to see
The City of Arts and Sciences (Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias) occupies the eastern end of the old Turia riverbed and is the most immediately striking thing in Valencia. Designed primarily by Santiago Calatrava (a Valencian) and completed in stages between 1998 and 2005, the complex is a sequence of white, bone-like structures reflected in shallow pools — operatic in scale and polarising in the way that architecture which takes risks tends to be. Whatever your view of Calatrava, the complex works. The main buildings: the Oceanogràfic is the largest aquarium in Europe, covering marine ecosystems from the Arctic to the tropics across ten zones; adult admission approximately €31, children €23. The Hemisfèric is a planetarium and IMAX theatre in a building shaped like a vast human eye; tickets approximately €8 adult, €6.20 concession. The Museu de les Ciències is an interactive science museum occupying a structure of remarkable engineering. The L’Umbracle — a long, arched walkway planted with native Valencian species — is free. The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia is a concert hall and opera house; check programming at lesarts.com. Combined tickets for the Oceanogràfic and Science Museum represent good value; check the official site (cac.es) for current pricing and combinations before you go.
The Cathedral (Catedral de València) stands in the Plaça de la Reina in the old city and is worth visiting for several reasons, not all of them conventionally architectural. The building is primarily Gothic, begun in the thirteenth century on the site of a mosque, which was itself on the site of a Roman temple — a sequence that is archaeologically interesting and practically invisible from the nave. The cathedral contains a small dark chalice of agate, set in a gold and jewel-encrusted medieval mount, which has been housed here since 1437 and which the Church formally recognises as the most likely candidate for the Holy Grail — the cup used at the Last Supper. The claim is not frivolous; the chalice’s provenance has been traced with some seriousness and the Vatican has acknowledged it. Whether or not it is what it is claimed to be, it is a very old cup in a very quiet side chapel, and the contrast with the dramatic language used to describe it is in itself interesting. Admission to the cathedral approximately €10 adults, €6 reduced; open Monday to Friday 10:30am–6:30pm, Saturday 10:30am–5:30pm, Sunday 2pm–5:30pm (hours subject to change; check on arrival).
The Miguelete Tower (El Micalet), the cathedral’s octagonal bell tower, stands separately and can be climbed — 207 steps of a tight spiral staircase — for views across the old city’s roofscape and out towards the sea. Admission approximately €3.
The Silk Exchange (La Lonja de la Seda) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the finest examples of civil Gothic architecture in Europe. Built between 1482 and 1492 as the commercial hall of Valencia’s silk merchants — during the period when Valencia was the dominant trading city on the Iberian peninsula — it has a main trading hall with tall, twisted columns that spiral upward to a vaulted ceiling in a way that still impresses after five centuries. The exterior carvings are dense and occasionally ribald (the medieval stone masons appear to have taken considerable liberties with the decorative programme). It sits directly opposite the Central Market. Admission approximately €2, €1 concession, free on Sundays.
The Central Market (Mercado Central) opened in 1928 in a large Modernista building with an iron and glass roof and approximately 900 stalls. It is the largest indoor market in Europe by floor area and one of the better places in any city to spend an hour — seafood, produce, charcuterie, spices, local cheeses, fresh orange juice at prices that feel implausible given Valencia’s proximity to all those orange groves. Best visited in the morning; many stalls close by early afternoon.
The Turia Gardens are nine kilometres of linear parkland running through the middle of the city on the bed of the diverted river. Shaded paths, cycling routes, sports pitches, playgrounds, the Gulliver Park (a large sculpture children can climb on), and a rose garden at the western end. It connects the historic centre to the beach at the eastern end. The best way to experience Valencia’s relationship with its climate is to spend an afternoon in these gardens; they are genuinely used, genuinely good, and free.
Paella
Valencia is where paella comes from, and Valencians have strong views about what it is. The authentic version is made with short-grain rice, chicken, rabbit, green beans, white butter beans, tomato, olive oil, saffron (which provides the colour and the characteristic socarrat — the slightly toasted crust on the bottom of the pan), and rosemary. Seafood paella is a different, also valid dish. The version with everything in it — chicken, prawns, mussels, and assorted vegetables — exists, but no Valencian cook would own it. For the real thing, the restaurants around the Albufera lake south of the city (where the rice is grown) are the correct destination; in the city itself, look for places that describe their paella as valenciana and are prepared to wait the forty minutes it takes to cook it properly. Anything arriving in under fifteen minutes was made earlier.
Las Fallas
If you are in Valencia in the third week of March, you will not be able to ignore Las Fallas. The festival honours St Joseph, patron saint of carpenters, and involves the construction over many months of enormous satirical sculptures (fallas) — some five storeys tall — made from wood, polystyrene, and papier-mâché, erected in the streets across the city, and then burned simultaneously on the night of 19 March. The weeks leading up to the cremà (the burning) involve daily 2pm firework salvos (mascletà) in the Plaça de l’Ajuntament of considerable sonic violence, parades, music, and the city operating at a pitch of organised chaos. One falla from each neighbourhood is voted too good to burn and preserved in the Museo Fallero. The rest go up in smoke. It is spectacular, loud, and unlike anything else.
Getting there
Valencia is well served by high-speed rail. From Madrid Atocha, AVE trains take approximately one hour and forty minutes; services run frequently throughout the day. From Barcelona Sants, the journey takes around three hours and fifteen minutes. Trains arrive at the Estació del Nord (North Station) in the centre of the city, a short walk from the old town — a fine Modernista building in its own right, worth looking at before you leave.
Within the city, the metro and extensive bus network cover most destinations; the Turia Gardens and City of Arts and Sciences are connected to the centre by the gardens themselves (walkable or cyclable) or by the metro to Alameda or Facultats stations.
Cost and hours
Turia Gardens and old town streets: free. Cathedral: approximately €10 adult, €6 reduced; Mon–Fri 10:30am–6:30pm, Sat 10:30am–5:30pm, Sun 2pm–5:30pm. Miguelete Tower: approximately €3. Silk Exchange: approximately €2 (free Sundays). Central Market: free to enter; most stalls open from 7:30am, closing between noon and 2pm. City of Arts and Sciences — Oceanogràfic: approximately €31 adult, €23 children; Hemisfèric: approximately €8 adult; combined tickets and current pricing at cac.es.