Valencia

Spain·Europe

Currency

EUR

Language

Spanish, Valencian

Timezone

Madrid

Continent

Europe

Our guide

Discover Valencia

Valencia diverted its river after the 1957 flood and turned the empty bed into a nine-kilometre park running through the city — the Jardí del Túria is the most successful piece of urbanism in Spain. At its end, Calatrava's Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències lines up its white shells. In the old town, the Silk Exchange, the Gothic hall of the silk trade, is on the World Heritage list. Valencia Cathedral keeps the chalice venerated as the Holy Grail. The Central Market, a modernist hall of 1928, is still a working market, and the Torres dels Serrans guard the old walls.

When to go

March to June and September to November: twenty to twenty-eight degrees, the sea still warm in October. July and August are hot and humid, with a crowded beach. Winter stays mild, around seventeen degrees by day. Fallas week, in mid-March, fills the city with monumental sculptures burned on the last night — spectacular, extremely loud, and hotels double their prices.

Getting around

The historic centre is walked. The Jardí del Túria is for bicycles and the city is flat, which makes cycling obvious — Valenbisi covers the whole centre. Metro and tram reach the beach and the airport. La Malvarrosa is twenty minutes from the centre. For the Albufera, the lagoon to the south where paella was born, bus 25 reaches El Palmar in an hour.

Where to eat

Paella was born here, with rice, rabbit and chicken, never seafood in the Valencian version — the point is not trivial locally. It is eaten at midday, not in the evening. Horchata, a tiger-nut drink served with fartons, belongs to late afternoon. The Central Market has supplied the city for a century. Three halal addresses are listed.

Good to know

The euro is the currency. Spanish hours apply: lunch at two, dinner at nine, and many shops close in the afternoon. The Silk Exchange and several municipal museums are free on Sundays. Fallas must be booked months ahead. And the city saw major flooding in October 2024 in its southern outskirts: the centre is intact, some neighbouring towns much less so.

Smart Planning