Evolving Valencia – the old and the new

While Valencia is best-known for its March Fallas festival, there are several very good reasons why it can be enjoyed at any time of year.

The array of spectacular new museums along the Turia riverbed is clearly a highlight of the new Valencia. When we were there only one of these were open (they are scheduled to all be open when Valencia hosts the America’s Cup in 2007), but the ambition and scale of the architecture is most impressive.

On a more intimate scale, wandering around Valencia’s old town is definitely a highlight. Unexpected wall murals and small parks shaded by orange trees provided lower-key highlights as we strolled around.

Architecturally, and in a city of some wonderful buildings, the "old" highlight for us was definitely the spectacularly over-the-top baroque facade of the ceramics museum. This is an attraction in itself. We also found the old silk exchange (the Lonja) to be a more-restrained highlight, and another that should not be missed.

Valencia’s bullring, and the long queue for tickets, was another highlight for us. We were able to see inside via a visit to the bullfighting museum and this is a cultural highlight that I found most interesting.

With paella and tapas being such well-known parts of Valencian cuisine, it was great to find wonderful venues to experience each. Our paella near the beach at La Pepica and our tapas in the old mansion housing El Huerto were indeed culinary highlights for us.

Quick Tips:

Remember that much of Valencia closes down on Sunday afternoons and on Mondays. Also, several of the bigger newer museums are not yet open.

Most museums are closed for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The upside is that they are often open until nine at night.

Entry to many museums is free on Sundays and holidays. This usually attracts bigger crowds (we were scared off by a very long line for free viewing of the Chinese terracotta army) and visiting outside of these hours would probably be a more-pleasant experience.

Take time to walk at random. There are hidden gems in many quiet corners of the old town

Speak to people. Even though English is rarely understood, we were pleasantly surprised by how friendly people were. We were also surprised how far we got with pidgin Italian.

Best Way To Get Around:

Walking is definitely the best way to experience the best of Valencia. Most of its main attractions are in the relatively-compact old quarter and walking is the most pleasant, and most practical, way of getting between them.

Valencia’s new riverbed museum complex is about a half-hour walk from the old town. We enjoyed our walk along the riverbed park – among orange trees, lakes, playgrounds, and fountains. Very pleasant.

In summer, Valencia’s beach at Playa Levante would definitely be an attraction. This can be reached either by taxi (15 minutes, EUR5), or by no. 32 bus (30 minutes, EUR1 per person).

We used taxis to get to and from Valencia airport. This cost no more than EUR12 and was quick and pleasant. City buses are clean and cost EUR1 per journey (buy tickets from the driver). Valencia has a fairly-extensive metro system that skirts the old town, but is useful if you happen to be staying at the university or outlying areas.

El Huerto is situated in a beautifully-restored mansion on the outskirts of the old town. We were looking for a fun tapas meal there, and we were definitely not disappointed.

When we arrived at El Huerto, the smartly dressed people in front of us headed up the beautiful ceramic-tiled staircase to the restaurant upstairs. We stayed in the more casual tapas room – with a long bar counter at one end – at the bottom of the stairs. We admired the carved ceiling panels, and the patterned tiles on the walls.

We ordered "Coronita" beers (brewed in Spain, with lemon slices) and sampled a plate of "marcona" salted almonds. These almonds are flatter than the traditional shape for almonds. We enjoyed them lots.

El Huerto has an extensive tapas menú. After much prevarication, we eventually chose five of them. The plate of aubergine carpaccio with parsley and parmesan slices was excellent – the aubergine was firm and smoky, and the parsley flavour was a good complement. The sausage and bean casserole did not meet with such universal approval. It was a plate of broad beans around a couple of sausages – with the harder sausage being much more popular than the squidgy "blood" variety.

The salami plate went well with the bread and olive oil that was brought to the table when we arrived. We also enjoyed the potato croquettes with Roquefort sauce and we rounded things out with another potato plate – potato slices with a mustard sauce. Very good.

We skipped dessert and finished our meal with glasses of milky coffee. We enjoyed sitting for a while, and then wandered upstairs to have a peek at the fancy restaurant. The upstairs room is beautifully decorated – with blue ceramics and white tablecloths – and looks like a great place for a quieter evening.

We visited El Huerto at 10pm on a Saturday evening. Although the restaurant was not full when we arrived, we were glad to have made reservations beforehand. The El Huerto tapas restaurant was definitely to our taste, the tapas were delicious, and the décor was attractive and interesting. Service was efficient but unhurried, and the evening was a great introduction to tapas eating in Valencia. Highly recommended.

Valencia is famous for its paella, and La Pepica is a long-established fish restaurant on the Valencia beachfront. We enjoyed a long, lazy lunch on a relaxed Sunday afternoon at La Pepica.

Valencia’s Playa de Leante beachfront is not in easy walking-distance from the old town. Our fifteen-minute taxi ride cost EUR$5, and we arrived there at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon. We had reservations, and our table by the window gave us a good view of the beach in front. (La Pepica also has an outdoor eating area, open in summer).

La Pepica is big, and the Sunday afternoon atmosphere was definitely busy. The restaurant was full by 2:30pm, with most of the clientele being large family parties. We started our meal with a plate of ham-and-cheese slices, and an excellent "Valencian" salad (with big capers and sweet tomatoes). We also had a plate of fantastic anchovies – thicker and bigger and not as salty as the ones I am used to, and served in tomato paste and oil. A real highlight, and a good sign for the paella to follow.

For the paella main course, we chose the seafood variety (rabbit and chicken varieties are also popular). After a while, we were presented with a big platter of yellow rice. This was dotted with fish and shrimps, and with garlic mayonnaise on the side. The platter was then taken away, and the paella returned to our table on plates. It really was delicious, and the second portion (with the rice from the bottom of the pan) tasted even better.

We finished our meal with strawberries and cream, and we enjoyed watching all the activity around us. La Pepica is laid out like a big hall, with testimonial photographs of paella-eating celebrities (including, in pride of place, a large picture of Ernest Hemingway and friends) on the walls. There are also some interesting tile murals and old memorabilia on display.

After our long lunch, we waited a while for our bill and then stepped outside for some sea air and exercise. La Pepica is the first of a long line of restaurants along the beachfront, and we enjoyed a pleasant dawdle along the boardwalk. We saw a new hotel under construction and a few intrepid beach volleyball enthusiasts. After strolling for about half an hour, we walked inland one block and caught the no. 32 bus (EUR1 per person, buy tickets from the driver) for the half-hour ride back to old Valencia.

We enjoyed our Sunday paella lunch at La Pepica very much. Service was not quick, but it was friendly, the food was definitely up to expectations, and the people-watching was exceptional. Highly recommended.

Tel: 96 351 6392

The ceramics museum in Valencia is housed in the beautiful Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas in the centre of town. We were attracted to the museum by Valencia’s reputation as a centre of ceramic-making in Spain, and by the spectacular baroque façade on the front of the building.

The front of the Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas is indeed an amazing sight. It is full of baroque exuberance – swirls, straining caryatids, lions and wild animals – and we were not surprised to learn that its architect eventually went insane.

We visited the ceramics museum late on a Tuesday morning. Passing through the spectacular doorway, the courtyard inside is much more restrained. A couple more baroque figures stand against the courtyard walls, and there are a couple of beautiful tiled benches below them.

The museum is set in an old mansion, and the ceramic exhibits are set among those showing how the Marquis of Dos Aguas lived. Not knowing much about ceramics, I found the arrays of plates a bit overwhelming. Some gold-trimmed hunting-scene plates were the highlight for me, and we also enjoyed the display of ceremonial coaches that were used until the last century.

The living rooms of the house have been beautifully restored, with the original furnishings intact. The "red room" was the one I found most interesting – red material, painted musical nymphs on the ceilings, and built-in wall panels to hide an orchestra behind. The dining-room provided a good setting for some particularly-impressive plates and serving dishes.

The museum itself is quite small, and not being ceramics buffs an hour was plenty of time for us. This was just as well, because as the 2 p.m. closing time approached it was very clear that the staff wanted to somewhere else at that time – surely at the daily 2pm firecrackers display (Mascleta) just down the road.

The ceramics museum does not have extensive annotation panels in English. Laminated cards provide a brief introduction to each room, but we would definitely have appreciated being able to learn more about the objects on display. The museum is open from 10am until 2pm and from 4 until 8pm (entry: EUR2 per person), Tuesday to Saturday. It is open on Sundays from 10am until 2pm. Entry is free on Saturday afternoons and on Sunday mornings.

Tel: 96 388 3738

Valencia’s bullring is next to the main train station on the northern edge of town. In early March, the bullfighting season was yet to begin but long queues for tickets suggested that it was about to do so. While it looked to us that a broad cross-section of society was represented in the ticket queues, we also saw signs that bullfighting is not universally popular in Valencia.

The bullfighting museum is off a shopping arcade next to the bullring. We passed several small shops selling bullfighting memorabilia before coming across the unprepossessing entrance to the museum. We left our camera with the friendly receptionists and headed upstairs to the small bullfighting exhibit.

A star exhibit of the museum is a collection of matador costumes. As well as the intricacy of the costumes, what struck us is how small matadors must be – certainly smaller than the hose-riding picadors. And certainly small when compared to the stuffed bulls on display. These are displayed at matador eye-level, and they must indeed be a fearsome sight when angry and face-to-face in the bullring.

I also found the exhibit about the death of a matador to be interesting. Photographs of his last bullfight and his funeral are displayed together with fragments of his costume and newspaper accounts of reaction to his death.

Having spent about half an hour in the museum, we retrieved our camera from the museum reception and were led over to have a look at the bullring. We were able to stand at an entrance and look out at the raked-earth of the ring and at the empty stands. The only other people there were painters, preparing the bullring for its opening the following week.

Not everyone in Valencia likes bullfights. The museum custodian told us that she has never been to a bullfight. And earlier in the day we had seen a poster for a Brecht play – it showed a plaintive cow on a stark background and appeared to deliberately contrast the beautiful bullfighting posters around the town.

As with the other small museums we visited in Valencia (the Fallas museum and the ceramics museum), we were really sorry that the bullfighting museum did not have annotation panels in English. What we could glean from the exhibits was interesting, and we would recommend a visit to anyone with an interest in what bullfighting means to Valencians.

Entry to the bullfighting museum is free. It is open from 10am until 8pm, Tuesday to Sunday.

Valencia is hosting the America’s Cup in 2007. Partly in anticipation of that, an array of spectacular new museums is opening up along the dry bed of the river Turia between the port and the old town. On the day that we were there, only one of these was open, but they do make for an impressive spectacle.

Having spent the morning at the nearby Fallas Museum, we crossed over the road and headed through the riverbed park towards Valencia’s collection of new set-piece museums. We had seen posters advertising free admission to an exhibit of the Chinese terracotta army at the Museo de las Ciencias, and this was our destination.

Heading towards the port, the first big museum we came across was the Palacio de las Artes. Bubbling up next to it is the Hemisferio – also big and glassy and an impressive technological achievement. Both appeared to be closed, possibly for renovations, and the only people we could see were cleaners in the reflecting ponds around them. The next big museum in this impressive line is the Museo de las Ciencias. We wandered around the outside, but the long line for the terracotta army persuaded us not to go in. Instead, we strolled through the new open palm house that faces the museum. From there, we could also see construction going on towards the port – with the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias and Parque Oceanografico visible beyond the barrier. The whole site was a bit like a new airport, but it should make for an impressive collection of museums when all is complete.

Once we had decided not to enter the Museo de las Ciencias, we wandered back into old Valencia along the dry river bed. This too has been extensively redeveloped, with fountains and pools among the palms, olives, and orange trees, and with the old bridges across the river left intact. We admired the child-friendly Gulliver sculpture and the concert hall en route. We saw a fair number of grandparents with grandchildren and also the occasional jogger. We really enjoyed this stroll – the redevelopment is interesting and accessible and the whole area must be full of activity on weekends.

We enjoyed our afternoon along the Turia riverbed. With the big museums mostly closed, the walk among the water and trees of the gardens leading into town was most pleasant and definitely something that we would recommend. If the final stage of the redevelopment is completed as tastefully as the first, then the whole area will be a wonderful and impressive attraction. Highly recommended.

We enjoyed wandering around old Valencia. The old quarter of town is relatively compact, with wall murals and orange trees providing a more intimate complement to the grander churches and monuments.

The centre of the old town is dominated by Valencia’s cathedral (open Tuesday to Sunday 7:30am to 1pm and 4:30 to 6pm) and the neighbouring Basilica of the Virgen (open daily 7am to 2pm and 6:30 to 9pm). We visited both late on a Sunday morning, when there was standing room only during the church service. We stood quietly, admired the beautifully-painted ceilings, listened to the rhythms of the service, and watched the congregation drifting in and out. As you might expect, the Basilica of the Virgen houses a statue of the Virgin and apparently it was to her that the Valencia soccer team gave thanks when they won a European soccer cup last year.

Next to the Basilica of the Virgen, is Valencia’s cathedral. The cathedral claims to house the "true" holy grail and this is displayed in its own side chapel. The cup (behind protective glass) in itself looks small and insignificant, but clearly it is much more important than that. We enjoyed sitting for a while, admiring the cup and the interesting wall murals in the chapel.

Another architectural highlight of old Valencia is the Lonja – the old silk exchange (open: Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 2pm and 4:30 to 8:30pm, Sunday 10am to 3pm). It is mainly a beautiful, big stone room, supported by pillars carved like rolls of fabric. The carved people (many playing imaginative musical instruments) and animals on the door frames and walls made for energetic decoration, and we enjoyed the peaceful calm of the orange-and-vegetable garden out the back. The Lonja’s chapel was closed ("until the summer") when we were there.

Random strolling around old Valencia threw up occasional surprises. As well as beautiful ceramic wall murals and shrines, we saw trompe d’oiel painted people sitting in windows and grotesque Fallas party costumes on sale in the small Fallas costume shop. We could imagine the occasional parks and orange trees providing much-appreciated shade during the summer months, and the fountain in front of the Cathedral was a focus point for weekend meeting and promenading.