Valencia, Spain
A Mediterranean capital where a thousand-year-old quarter sits a tram ride from a futuristic skyline and a wide city beach. Here is where to wander, what to see, and where to eat the paella that was invented down the road.
Start where the city did. The old town packs two thousand years into a few walkable streets: Roman foundations, Arab walls, a Gothic cathedral and squares that fill at every hour. These three anchor your morning.
Built over a Roman temple and a mosque, the cathedral stitches Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque into one walk. Inside, a small chapel holds the agate cup that many believe is the Holy Grail. Climb the 207 steps of the Miguelete tower for the best free view in the city.
The old forum of Roman Valentia, now the social heart of the old town. The reclining figure on the central fountain is the river Turia, ringed by eight maidens for the canals that water the orchards. Take an horchata at a terrace and watch the city pass.
The tangled medieval quarter between the two surviving city gates. By day it is faded facades, ceramic shopfronts and street art; by night it is the loudest, most loved neighbourhood for tapas and wine. Get lost on purpose.
Where the river Turia once ran, the architect Santiago Calatrava raised a skyline of bone-white ribs and shallow blue pools. The Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencies is Valencia at its most cinematic, best seen at the blue hour when the buildings double in their reflections.
L'Hemisferic
L'Oceanografic
Principe Felipe museum
Palau de les Arts
Under a vault of iron, coloured glass and ceramic domes, close to a thousand stalls have traded since 1928. This is where the city shops and where the chefs come at dawn: pyramids of oranges, hanging hams, seafood glistening on ice, and saffron measured out by the gram.
1928
959
8,000
Go hungry. Many stalls serve what they sell, so order a plate of clams and a glass of wine at the counter, then cross the square to the silk-trade Lonja, a UNESCO Gothic masterpiece, before the market shuts mid-afternoon.
Valencia is one of the few big cities where you can stand in a Gothic cathedral in the morning and swim by lunch. The Malva-rosa is a long band of golden sand backed by a palm-lined promenade and the restaurants where paella was first served to outsiders.
Walk the paseo
Time it right
Eat with sand underfoot
Paella is from here, and Valencians are exacting about it. The original is paella valenciana: short-grain rice cooked in a wide pan over wood, with chicken, rabbit, flat green beans, butter beans and a thread of saffron. No chorizo, and traditionally eaten at lunch, never dinner. Seafood paella and arros a banda are the coastal cousins. These are the addresses locals send you to.
Order it like a local
Tap the moments you want and they drop into your day, roughly in order from morning to night. Your list is saved on this device, so it is here when you come back.