While it’s probably destined to remain overshadowed to a degree by the nation’s “big two”, Spain’s third-largest city is arguably its most unsung. Two hours on the train from Madrid, three from Barcelona, Valencia is a popular port of call on the Mediterranean cruise circuit, and a good place to visit throughout the year, with an average 300 days of annual sunshine. It’s flaunting its eco-friendly credentials as the 2024 European Green Capital. Here are five city highlights.
With its labyrinthine alleys, eye-catching churches and hole-in-the-wall bar-restaurants, Valencia’s vibrant old town has its similarities with Barcelona’s Barri Gotic, only with fewer tourists. Founded by the Romans in 138 BC, and subsequently occupied by Visigoths and Moors, Valencia blossomed in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a thriving mercantile seaport that traded across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic with Spain’s American colonies. Wandering around this photogenic quarter, you’ll see remnants of the walled old city (including two remaining city gates) and an imposing 13th-century cathedral constructed over a former mosque and claiming to house the “Holy Grail” — the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Climb the 207 steps of the cathedral’s octagon belltower for views of the city and sea. Close by is a UNESCO-rated relic of Valencia’s “Golden Age”, La Lonja de la Seda, a silk exchange from the mid-16th century. Visitors can tour this former trading hall, with its splendid spiral columns, and relax in a courtyard peppered with orange trees (a popular tipple in this city, incidentally, is agua de Valencia, which fuses juicy local citruses with vodka, gin and cava — Spanish bubbly).
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