On the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula, northeast of Alicante but southwest of Barcelona, lies Valencia, the third largest city in Spain and the fifth biggest container port in all of Europe. Apparently, there are lots of ex-pats in Valencia. We ventured here for 10 days, getting a feel for the city. It has all the charms of other Spanish cities, and it’s reputed to be less expensive than Barcelona or Madrid.
Our time in Valencia was dominated by the Fallas Festival that took place during our stay there. We’ll cover our Fallas Experience in a separate post, so this post will focus only on Valencia itself.
Valencia’s “Old Town” centers around a huge Central Market sitting on a wide pedestrian main street through the town. Step off this route and you find yourself in those mazelike, narrow streets that characterize so many medieval European cities. You can easily get lost, but then you’ll find another square, with some more coffee shops and bars. Getting lost can be fun.
Some remnants of the medieval walls remain, and two towers still stand marking two of Valencia’s seven original gates. It’s long history pre-dates the building of its Roman city walls. Later, when the Moors took over, they expanded the city by building a larger circle of walls. Built along the Turia River, the city suffered regularly from destructive floods. After a particularly devastating flood in 1957, the city diverted the river so that it would no longer threatened the town. At the same time, the bed of the Turia River, which circles the town center today, became a lovely green space for all to enjoy.
Like other European cities, Valencia has plenty of churches, mostly Roman Catholic, but we do find some remnants of the Moorish culture in the architecture. During our stay, the town was packed with tourists, here for the Fallas Festival, so we realized that our experience of the city did not reflect everyday normal life in Valencia.
Beyond the city’s center, the old architecture disappears, and the large city is quite modern. A defining feature of modern Valencia is the City of Arts and Sciences, an amazing structure built into the southeast end of the Turia Riverbed Park. The complex includes:
- L’Hemisferic, which includes an IMAX Cinema, a planetarium and laserium.
- Museu de les Ciencies, an interactive museum of science with displays to fascinate both young and old.
- L’Umbracle, a raised, open-air structure featuring a landscaped walk among plants indigenous to Valencia.
- L’Oceanografic, the largest oceanographic aquarium in Europe. It includes several buildings, each representing a different aquatic environment: Mediterranean, wetlands, temperate and tropical seas, islands, the Arctic and Antarctic environments. A great open-air theater offers live dolphin shows. Without a doubt, this was the largest and best “aquarium” we’ve ever seen.
- Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, a Palace of Fine Arts dedicated to music and the performing arts. It houses an Opera House, the Main Hall, the Master Hall, the Auditorium and a theatre.
- L’Agora, a covered plaza designed to hold concerts and sporting events.
I cannot begin to describe the amazing architecture of this complex with its white skeleton arches reaching from calm blue ponds up into the sky.
Photos often fail to capture the beauty of a building or depth of a landscape, but Sara’s pictures will give you some sense of this amazing place. Unfortunately, our days here were overcast, and the whites of the buildings may get lost in the white and gray of the clouds. During our stay, we enjoyed the planetarium, the science museum, and especially the Oceanographic, including many aquariums, different environments, and a live dolphin performance.
If you’re ever near Valencia, you must check this out. I’ve included a compilation of a few short videos from inside Oceanographic. I’m learning how to use this program to put little videos together…..hope it works.
From Valencia, we headed east, to Tel Aviv, Israel where we would join friends on a tour of the Holy Land.
