Overview
Set on the eastern coast where the rice fields meet the sea, Valencia mixes a handsome medieval and baroque old town with bold modern architecture and a long city beach. When its river was diverted after a flood, the old bed became a green ribbon of parkland that loops through the city to Santiago Calatrava’s white City of Arts and Sciences. Warm and relaxed, it is the home of paella and a lively festival city, best known for the fiery Fallas each March.
Highlights
The City of Arts and Sciences, a complex of gleaming white museums, opera house and aquarium, is the modern emblem of the city. The old town holds the cathedral, the silk exchange of the Lonja and the vast Central Market, and the Turia gardens run through the former riverbed. Paella comes from the rice fields of the Albufera just south, and the city beach and marina lie a short way east.