Valencia has quietly become one of Spain's most livable cities, a historic centre, a beach within cycling distance, and the futuristic City of Arts and Sciences rising from a riverbed that was rerouted after a devastating 1957 flood and turned into a nine-kilometre park running through the middle of the city.
The City of Arts and Sciences
Santiago Calatrava's City of Arts and Sciences complex, all curved white concrete and reflecting pools, includes an opera house, a planetarium shaped like a giant eye, and one of Europe's largest aquariums, visit at night when the buildings are lit and their reflections double in the surrounding pools.
The Turia Gardens, the park built in the old riverbed, run the length of the city and are Valencia's best free attraction, cycle the full route on rented bikes past playgrounds, running tracks, and the Gulliver park, a giant slide shaped like the bound giant from Gulliver's Travels.
Old Town and Paella
The old town's Central Market, a soaring Art Nouveau iron-and-glass structure, is one of Europe's oldest working markets and the best place to understand Valencia's food culture before eating it, the produce and seafood on display explain why paella, invented here, remains so closely tied to the surrounding rice paddies of the Albufera wetlands.
Order paella only for lunch, and only from restaurants that make it to order, which takes at least twenty minutes, anywhere serving it instantly, especially in the evening, is not doing it properly. Restaurants around the Albufera Natural Park, a short drive south, do it best.
Recommended Stay · Valencia · Old Town
Caro Hotel
A boutique hotel built over Roman, Arab, and medieval Christian ruins, all visible through glass floors, in a converted 19th-century palace in the old town.
