Photo: Valencia, Spain’s third city, sits on a flat plain between the Mediterranean and the orange groves and rice fields of its huerta. The old town keeps its Gothic gates, a silk exchange and a cathedral that holds a cup venerated as the Holy Grail. Around it, the old bed of the Turia, moved out of the city after the flood of 1957, has become a park more than eight kilometers long, running to Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences, and the beaches are a tram ride away. This is the home of paella and horchata, and of the Fallas, the March festival that ends in fire.
This guide covers when to go, where to stay, what to see, a walk through the old town, a day at the Albufera, what to eat, and the history, festivals and customs that make the city make sense.
What Valencia is good for
Friends' trips
Rent bikes and ride the Turia gardens from the Serranos Towers to the City of Arts and Sciences, share a paella by the sea at lunch, then spend the evening in the bars of Ruzafa. The city is flat, compact and cheaper than Barcelona or Madrid.
Bachelorette and bachelor weekends
Valencia does long lunches and late nights: a paella for the whole table, a jug of Agua de Valencia, then the bars of Ruzafa and El Carmen and, in summer, the clubs by the port and the beach. In March, the Fallas turn the whole city into a street party, with fireworks every day.
Weddings and honeymoons
A legal civil wedding in Spain needs one partner to be resident, so most visiting couples marry at home and hold a symbolic ceremony here, often in an alquería, a farmhouse among the orange groves. For a honeymoon, pair the city with the coves of the Costa Blanca at Xàbia and Dénia.
Couples
A boat on the Albufera at sunset, horchata in the Plaza de Santa Catalina, an evening walk past the lit pools of the City of Arts and Sciences, and dinner in the lanes of El Carmen.
Families
The underwater tunnels of the Oceanogràfic, the hands-on Science Museum, the Bioparc zoo and the giant Gulliver playground in the Turia gardens, with wide beaches a tram ride away.
Solo travel
Flat, safe and easy to cross on foot or by bike, with market counters and tapas bars where eating alone is normal. A cooking class, where everyone makes a paella together, is an easy way to meet people.
Food lovers
Paella where it was born, a dozen other rice dishes, horchata with fartons, the Central Market’s counters and the eels of the Albufera.
History and art
The Silk Exchange, the medieval gates, a cup venerated as the Holy Grail, Renaissance angels found under a Baroque vault, and Sorolla’s beaches in the Fine Arts Museum.
Plan your trip
When to go
Spring (March to May) and autumn (late September and October) bring warm days without the summer heat. The Fallas, from 15 to 19 March, with a mascletà every day from 1 March, fill the city with fireworks, crowds and noise: book months ahead, or avoid those days. July and August are hot and humid. Autumn brings the year’s heaviest rain, usually in short, violent storms, and winter is mild and sunny.
How long to stay
Three days covers the old town, the City of Arts and Sciences, the Turia gardens and the beach. Four days adds a day at the Albufera. With five, add Sagunto’s Roman theater and castle, or the coast to the south.
Getting there
Valencia Airport (VLC) is 8 km west of the center. Metro lines 3 and 5 run from the terminal to the center in about 25 minutes, and a taxi takes about 20. High-speed trains from Madrid reach Joaquín Sorolla station, south of the center, in under two hours, and trains from Barcelona take about three.
Getting around
Walk the old town, and use the Turia gardens as a green road across the city: they are flat, and good for cycling. Metro and tram lines and EMT buses cover the rest, and the tram runs to the beach. The Valencia Tourist Card, for 24, 48 or 72 hours, covers buses, metro and tram, including the airport metro, with free or reduced entry to many sights.
Tickets
Book the Oceanogràfic ahead for summer and weekends. The Fine Arts Museum is free, and city-run monuments such as the Serranos Towers and the Silk Exchange are free on Sundays and public holidays. The Cathedral charges for visits outside Mass, with an audio guide included.
Money and tipping
Tipping is not expected: round up, or leave 5 to 10 percent for good service at a sit-down meal. Cards are taken almost everywhere. On weekdays the menú del día, a set lunch of two courses with bread, a drink and dessert or coffee, is the best value in town.
Weather, month by month
Spring
March to May
Mild and bright, from about 19°C in March to 24°C in May, with the orange trees in blossom early in the season.
Summer
June to August
Hot and humid, around 28 to 30°C by day, with warm nights and a warm sea. Mornings and evenings are the time for walking.
Autumn
September to November
September feels like summer and October is warm, but autumn brings the heaviest rain, in short, sudden storms. November cools to about 20°C.
Winter
December to February
Mild and often sunny, with days around 16 to 17°C and cool nights. Quiet streets and low prices.
Top sights
01The City of Arts and Sciences
Santiago Calatrava’s white buildings fill the eastern end of the old riverbed. The Hemisfèric, shaped like an eye, opened first, in 1998, followed by the Science Museum, the Oceanogràfic, whose roofs were designed by Félix Candela, and the Palau de les Arts opera house. The aquarium, one of the largest in Europe, recreates the world’s seas around tunnels under the water, and the pools and the Umbracle garden walk are free to visit.
Come back at dusk, when the buildings are lit and reflected in the pools. Book the Oceanogràfic ahead in summer.
Photo: Alberto-g-rovi, CC BY-SA 3.0
02The Cathedral and the Micalet
Begun in 1262 on the site of the mosque, the Cathedral has a Romanesque door, a Gothic one and a Baroque main front. A side chapel keeps the Holy Chalice, an agate cup venerated as the Holy Grail and kept here since 1437, and over the high altar, angels painted from 1476 were found in 2004 under a later vault. Climb the 207 steps of the Micalet, the bell tower, for the view over the old town.
On Thursdays at noon, the Water Tribunal meets at the Apostles’ Door, as it has for centuries, to settle disputes over irrigation water.
Photo: Mihael Grmek, CC BY-SA 3.0
03The Silk Exchange
La Lonja, begun in 1482, was the trading floor of Valencia’s golden century, when silk made the city rich. In the Hall of Columns, twisted pillars rise like palm trunks into a ribbed Gothic vault. It has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage list since 1996.
Free on Sundays and public holidays. Walk around the outside to see the gargoyles.
Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0
04The Central Market
A Modernista hall of iron, glass and tile across the street from the Silk Exchange, opened in 1928 and one of the largest fresh-food markets in Europe: fruit from the huerta, ham, fish and seafood, rice and saffron, with counters where you can eat.
Open Monday to Saturday until 3pm, closed on Sundays. Go in the morning, and have lunch at the counters.
Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0
05The Turia Gardens
After the flood of 1957 the river was moved south of the city, and its old bed became a park: palms, orange trees and pine woods, playing fields, fountains and cycle paths, crossed by bridges as old as the 1400s. It runs from the Bioparc zoo in the west to the City of Arts and Sciences in the east.
Rent a bike and ride its whole length. The giant Gulliver playground near the eastern end is free.
Photo: MCAE Consulting, CC0
06The Serranos Towers
The great gate of the medieval wall, built from 1392 to 1398 by Pere Balaguer, faced the road from the north across the river. Its twin towers are open at the back, toward the city, and the stairs climb to a terrace over the Turia gardens and the old town.
A small fee, and free on Sundays and public holidays.
Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0
07The Fine Arts Museum
In the former college of San Pío V, across the Turia from the old town, one of Spain’s best collections: Valencian Gothic altarpieces, a self-portrait by Velázquez, portraits by Goya, works by Ribera and rooms of Sorolla. A Renaissance courtyard from a Valencian palace has been rebuilt inside.
Entry is free; closed on Mondays. The old royal gardens, the Jardines del Real, are next door.
Photo: CARLOS TEIXIDOR CADENAS, CC BY-SA 4.0
08El Cabanyal and the beaches
North of the port, the city beaches of Las Arenas and the Malvarrosa run into Patacona: wide sand, a long promenade and restaurants that have served paella for generations. Behind them, El Cabanyal, the old fishermen’s quarter, keeps its straight streets of low houses faced in colored tiles.
Take the tram to the beach, and eat paella at lunch, the way Valencians do.
Photo: Manuel Martín Vicente from Spain, CC BY 2.0
Three hidden gems
Through the old town, from gate to market
A morning across the old town: from the gate on its western side, through the lanes of El Carmen, to the Cathedral squares and the market under the iron domes.
Start at the Quart Towers, built from 1441 to 1493 as the western gate in the medieval wall. Their stone is still pitted by the cannonballs and musket fire of the French attack of June 1808, marks left in place when the towers were restored. You can climb them for the view over the rooftops.
Walk east into El Carmen, the oldest corner of the old town, where the lanes are narrow and many walls are covered in street art. In the Carrer del Portal de la Valldigna, a gate opened in 1400 in the old Muslim wall once led from the Christian city into the Moorish quarter, and a plaque beside it recalls the printers who produced one of the first books in Spain nearby, in 1474.
Keep east to the Plaza de la Virgen, on the site of the Roman forum. In its fountain, a reclining bronze figure represents the Turia, and the eight women around him the eight irrigation channels of the huerta. On one side rises the domed Basilica of the Virgen de los Desamparados, the city’s patroness; on the other, the Apostles’ Door of the Cathedral, where the Water Tribunal meets on Thursdays at noon.
Just behind the basilica, a shallow glass pool in the Plaza de l’Almoina covers the excavated streets of Roman and Visigothic Valencia. The museum below is closed for works into 2027, so check before you go. Walk on around the Cathedral to the Plaza de la Reina and into the Plaza Redonda, a ring of houses built in 1840 around the old fish and meat market, with small shops under its arcade.
From there it is a few steps to the Silk Exchange and, across the street, the Central Market. End at its counters with a plate of ham and a glass of wine, or turn back to the Plaza de Santa Catalina for horchata and fartons.
Where to stay
Pick the neighborhood first, then the hotel. Each link opens a map of places to stay around it.
Ciutat Vella
First visitThe old town inside the line of the medieval walls, from the Serranos Towers to the Central Market: the Cathedral, the Silk Exchange and the busiest squares. Everything is walkable, and the Turia gardens run along its northern edge.
See hotels in Ciutat VellaEl Carmen
NightlifeThe western half of the old town, a maze of narrow lanes with street art, small bars and the Quart Towers. Lively at night and loud at weekends.
See hotels in El CarmenRuzafa
Food and barsAn old working quarter south of the station, now the place to eat and drink, with cafés, restaurants and a covered market. Busy until late.
See hotels in RuzafaEixample
Shopping and comfortThe 19th-century grid around the Mercado de Colón, a Modernista market of 1916 now filled with cafés, and the shopping streets nearby. Calm at night, and a short walk from the old town and the Turia.
See hotels in EixampleEl Cabanyal
BeachThe old fishermen’s quarter by the sea, with long straight streets of low houses faced in colored tiles, a covered market and the beach at the end of every street. Seafood restaurants line the promenade.
See hotels in El CabanyalCity of Arts and Sciences
FamiliesThe newer district around Calatrava’s buildings at the eastern end of the Turia gardens: apartment hotels, bigger rooms and the Oceanogràfic on the doorstep. Quiet, and a bus ride or a long walk from the old town.
See hotels in City of Arts and SciencesThe 10 best budget hotels
Well-reviewed hotels at the lower end of Valencia’s prices, best-reviewed first. On a weeknight in November 2026 they cost about €70 to €130 for two; prices change daily, so check your own dates.
01
02Mon Suites Jardín de Ayora
9.42,274 reviewsCamins al Grau
20 min walk to the City of Arts and Sciences
See prices
03
04
05Valenciaflats Ciudad de las Ciencias
9.24,955 reviewsCity of Arts and Sciences
11 min walk to the City of Arts and Sciences
See prices
06Hotel Malcom and Barret
9.017,308 reviews1.3 km south of Ruzafa
29 min walk to Estació del Nord
See prices
07
08Rooms Ciencias
9.03,468 reviewsCity of Arts and Sciences
11 min walk to the City of Arts and Sciences
See prices
09Moontels Valencia Alameda 41
8.93,317 reviewsCity of Arts and Sciences
8 min walk to the City of Arts and Sciences
See prices
10
Hotel links go to Stay22. If you book, we may earn a commission, at no cost to you.
Food and drink
Valencia is rice country: the paddies of the Albufera begin at the edge of the city, and paella is only one of dozens of rice dishes. Rice is eaten at lunch, from about 2pm, and dinner starts at 9pm or later. The day often begins with an esmorzaret, a mid-morning sandwich with olives, peanuts and a drink.
Paella valenciana
Rice cooked in a wide, shallow pan with chicken, rabbit, flat green beans and garrofó, large white beans, colored with saffron and finished over a wood fire. No seafood in this one, and the crust at the bottom, the socarrat, is the best part.
Photo: Jan Harenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0
Arròs a banda
Rice cooked in a rich fish stock, with the fish served apart, a banda, and allioli on the side.
Photo: Alvy, CC BY 4.0
Fideuà
A seafood dish like paella, made with short thin noodles instead of rice. It is said to have been invented on a fishing boat from Gandia, down the coast.
Photo: Salvador Escriva, CC BY-SA 4.0
All i pebre
Eels from the Albufera stewed with potatoes, garlic and paprika. It is the dish of El Palmar, the village in the lagoon.
Photo: Joanbanjo, CC BY-SA 4.0
Esgarraet
Roasted red peppers and salt cod, torn into strips and dressed with garlic and olive oil.
Photo: Espencat, Public domain
Clòtxines
Small local mussels steamed with lemon and black pepper, sold in summer and eaten with your fingers.
Photo: Francesc Fort, CC BY-SA 4.0
Arròs al forn
Rice baked in a clay dish with chickpeas, pork, black pudding, potato and tomato, with a whole head of garlic in the middle.
Photo: Romang, CC BY-SA 4.0
Bunyols de carabassa
Pumpkin fritters fried in the street during the Fallas and dipped in thick hot chocolate.
Photo: jacové from València, spain, CC BY 2.0Eat paella at lunch in the beach restaurants of Las Arenas and the Malvarrosa or in El Palmar in the Albufera. The Central Market and the markets of Ruzafa and the Cabanyal have counters for lunch, and El Carmen and Ruzafa are the places for tapas at night. Drink horchata at the old horchaterías around the Plaza de Santa Catalina, or in Alboraya, where the tiger nuts grow.
The river that became a garden
In October 1957 the Turia flooded Valencia. The city moved the river out of its way, and then had to decide what to do with the dry bed it left behind.
For most of the year the Turia was a modest river, drawn almost dry by the irrigation channels that have watered the huerta since the Middle Ages. But in autumn, when storms stall over the mountains inland, it could rise within hours, and over the centuries it had flooded the city again and again. The stone bridges and the high walls along its banks were built with that in mind.
On 14 October 1957, after days of heavy rain upstream, the river came down on the city in two waves. Water filled the old town and the new districts beyond it, rising to some five meters in parts of Marxalenes. At least 81 people died, thousands of homes were destroyed, and the whole city was left without water, gas or electricity.
The answer was the Plan Sur, approved in December 1961: a new channel 12 km long and 175 meters wide, dug through the fields about three kilometers south of the old course, so that the Turia would never cross the city again. The channel was finished in 1969, and by the early 1970s the river ran through it. The empty bed curving around the old town was meant to carry a motorway.
Many Valencians wanted something else. Through the 1970s residents campaigned under the slogan El llit del Túria és nostre i el volem verd, the Turia’s bed is ours and we want it green. In 1976 the old riverbed was handed to the city, and in the years that followed the motorway gave way to a park. Ricardo Bofill designed the stretch of orange trees and palms by the Palau de la Música, other teams laid out the sports grounds and the pine woods, and the first sections opened in 1986.
The river was sent around the city, and the space it left became Valencia’s longest park.
Today the gardens run for more than eight kilometers, from the Bioparc in the west to the City of Arts and Sciences in the east, under bridges both medieval and modern. The Palau de la Música opened in the gardens in 1987, the Gulliver playground, a giant from Swift’s novel lying on his back, in 1990, and Calatrava’s Hemisfèric in 1998. On any evening the riverbed fills with runners, cyclists, football games and families, in a river that no longer flows.
The new channel was built for a flood like the one of 1957.
Art
The Fine Arts Museum
Free, and one of the great collections of Spanish painting: Valencian Gothic altarpieces, Velázquez’s self-portrait, portraits by Goya, Ribera’s saints and a room of Sorolla.
Sorolla
Joaquín Sorolla was born in Valencia in 1863 and painted the light on its beaches better than anyone: fishermen and their boats, children in the surf, women in white on the sand. His house and studio in Madrid are now the Museo Sorolla.
The Cathedral’s angels
From 1476, the Italian painters Paolo da San Leocadio and Francesco Pagano covered the vault over the high altar with angels playing music, for Rodrigo de Borja, later Pope Alexander VI. In 1674 a Baroque vault was built below them, and they stayed hidden until 2004.
Ceramics
The Dos Aguas palace, behind an alabaster portal carved by Ignacio Vergara in the 1740s, houses the National Ceramics Museum, with the lustreware of Manises and Paterna and the tiles that still cover Valencian walls.
Modern Valencia
IVAM, the Valencian Institute of Modern Art, opened in 1989 around the work of the sculptor Julio González, and Calatrava’s buildings at the City of Arts and Sciences are art of a different kind.
Valencia on the page
A knight who wrote love poems in his own language, a novel of chivalry that Cervantes saved from the fire, and a novelist who took the city’s fishermen and rice farmers to the world.
Ausiàs March
1400 to 1459
A knight from Gandia who spent his last years in Valencia and lies in the Cathedral. He wrote his poems in the language of his own people rather than the Occitan of the troubadours, and in Veles e vents, Sails and winds, a lover at sea calls on the winds to carry him home.
Joanot Martorell
about 1413 to 1468
A Valencian knight who began Tirant lo Blanc in 1460: a novel of chivalry with real battles and real places, where knights eat, sleep and die in their beds. It was printed in Valencia in 1490, and in Don Quixote the priest saves it from the bonfire of romances, calling it, for its style, the best book in the world.
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
1867 to 1928
Born in Valencia, he wrote the novels of its streets, its huerta and its lagoon: Arroz y tartana (1894), Flor de mayo (1895) among the Cabanyal’s fishermen, La barraca (1898) and Cañas y barro (1902) in the Albufera. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916) made him famous around the world and became a Hollywood film in 1921. His house on the Malvarrosa beach, rebuilt where his chalet stood, is now a museum.
Veles é vents han mon desig cumplir
fahent camins dubtosos per la mar,
mestre é Ponent contra d’ ell veig armar
Xaloc, Llevant los déuhen subvenir
ab llurs amichs lo Grech é lo Mitjorn
fent humils prechs al vent Tremuntanal
qu’ en son bufar los sia parcial
perqué tots cinch complesquen mon retorn.
Ausiàs March, Veles e vents (15th century), in Obras del poeta valenciá Ausias March, edited by Francesch Fayos y Antony (1884)
Culture
The Fallas
From 15 to 19 March, hundreds of figures of wood and papier-mâché, some as tall as a building, fill the city’s squares. Every day at 2pm from 1 March, the mascletà shakes the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, on 17 and 18 March a flower offering covers a giant figure of the Virgin, and on the night of the 19th all of them burn, except the one pardoned ninot. The Fallas are on UNESCO’s list of intangible heritage.
The Water Tribunal
Every Thursday at noon, eight farmers elected by the huerta’s irrigation communities settle water disputes at the Cathedral’s Apostles’ Door, aloud and in Valencian, as they have for centuries. It is on UNESCO’s list of intangible heritage.
The Battle of Flowers
On the last Sunday of July, decorated floats parade along the Alameda and the crowd and the floats pelt each other with flowers.
La Tomatina
On the last Wednesday of August, the town of Buñol, about 40 km west, holds its tomato fight. Entry is by ticket.
Football
Valencia CF has played at Mestalla, one of Spain’s oldest grounds, since 1923.
Valencia on film
The City of Arts and Sciences has stood in for the future on screen, in Tomorrowland (2015) and in Doctor Who.
Music and nights out
Concert halls
The Palau de la Música, opened in the Turia gardens in 1987, is home to the city’s orchestra, and the Palau de les Arts, opened in 2005, stages opera.
Wind bands
Almost every Valencian town has its own amateur wind band, and every July the city holds an international band contest that has run since 1886.
Dolçaina and tabalet
The shawm and the small drum of Valencian festivals lead parades and processions through the old town.
Nights out
Start with a jug of Agua de Valencia, then the bars of Ruzafa and El Carmen, and in summer the clubs and terraces by the port and the beach.
Nature and day trips
The Turia gardens
The old riverbed, more than eight kilometers of paths, playing fields and gardens across the city, is the place to run, cycle and picnic.
The Albufera
A freshwater lagoon in a natural park south of the city, with rice fields, reed beds, boat trips at sunset and thousands of water birds in winter.
The beaches
Las Arenas and the Malvarrosa are the city beaches, wide and sandy, with lifeguards in summer, running on north into Patacona. South of the port, the beaches of El Saler are wilder, backed by pine woods and dunes.
Gardens
The Jardines del Real, the old royal gardens beside the Fine Arts Museum, the Jardín de Monforte, and the University’s Botanical Garden, on its present site since 1802.
Day trips
Sagunto’s Roman theater and hilltop castle are about half an hour north by train, and Xàtiva, with its castle above the town, about an hour south.
A day at the Albufera
About ten kilometers south of the city, a freshwater lagoon ringed by rice fields and pine dunes has been a natural park since 1986. Take EMT bus 25 to El Palmar, eat rice for lunch and stay for the sunset over the water.
People and customs
Late meals
Lunch runs from about 2pm and dinner from 9pm or later. Many restaurants close in between.
Paella at lunch
Valencians eat paella at midday, often on Sundays with the family, and rarely at night. A paella is made for at least two people, and some places ask you to order it ahead.
Esmorzaret
At mid-morning, workers stop for a big sandwich with olives, peanuts and a drink, finished with a cremaet. Bars across the city serve it.
The Fallas
In March, firecrackers go off everywhere, streets close for the figures and the crowds are huge. Bring earplugs, or come another month.
Midday closing
Many small shops close from about 2pm to 5pm and open again into the evening.
A few words
Spanish and Valencian are both official, and signs are often in both. Bon dia, per favor and gràcies are always welcome.
Questions
How many days do you need in Valencia?
Three days covers the old town, the City of Arts and Sciences, the Turia gardens and the beach. Four days adds a day at the Albufera, and five leaves time for Sagunto or the coast.
Where should I stay in Valencia?
The old town, Ciutat Vella, to be close to everything, or El Carmen for nightlife. Ruzafa is best for food and bars, the Eixample is calm and central, El Cabanyal is by the beach, and the City of Arts and Sciences area suits families.
When is the best time to visit Valencia?
March to May and late September to October, when days are warm without the summer heat. The Fallas, 15 to 19 March, are spectacular but crowded, and July and August are hot and humid.
How do I get from Valencia Airport to the city center?
Metro lines 3 and 5 run from the terminal to the center in about 25 minutes, and a taxi takes about 20 minutes.
Where can I eat real paella in Valencia?
At lunchtime, in the beach restaurants of Las Arenas and the Malvarrosa or in El Palmar in the Albufera. Paella valenciana is made with chicken, rabbit and beans, not seafood, and is usually for at least two people.
Is Valencia good for a bachelorette or a group trip?
Yes: long paella lunches, beach days, jugs of Agua de Valencia and the bars of Ruzafa and El Carmen. Come in mid-March for the Fallas if you want the whole city celebrating, and book early.
Plan Valencia with your group
Everyone swipes on the sights they want. SwipeSights builds the days around the picks, in walking order.
