Valencia

Founded by Roman consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in 138 BCE as the river island colony of Valentia Edetanorum, ruled for five centuries as Islamic Balansiya (714 to 1238 CE), and elevated during the fifteenth-century Valencian Golden Age into the wealthiest silk and merchant banking capital of the Crown of Aragon, Valencia (València in Valencian) is Spain's third-largest metropolis, counting roughly 825,000 city residents and 1.6 million across its metropolitan area. Few European cities are shaped as visibly by a single hydrographic event. After the catastrophic 14 October 1957 Great Flood of Valencia (Gran Riada de Valencia) inundated the streets under five metres of water, Spanish engineers diverted the Turia River south of the city through the Plan Sur channel. When citizens rejected a 1960s proposal to pave the dry river channel into an urban motorway under the civic rallying cry El llit del Túria és nostre i el volem verd ("The Turia riverbed is ours and we want it green"), Valencia transformed the sunken channel into the 9-kilometre Jardín del Turia. Today that green ribbon curves around the 1356 medieval wall perimeter of Ciutat Vella, anchored by the 1392 Torres de Serranos and 1441 Torres de Quart, where the UNESCO-listed La Lonja de la Seda (1482 to 1548) and the 1928 Mercado Central stand steps from Valencia Cathedral and its Holy Chalice. At the eastern mouth of the former riverbed shines Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela's City of Arts and Sciences and Oceanogràfic, leading out to the tile-fronted fishermen's cottages of El Cabanyal and Malvarrosa Beach and the rice-growing wetlands of Albufera Natural Park.

Fly into Valencia Manises Airport (VLC) 8 km west of the centre and ride underground Metrovalencia Line 3 or Line 5 to Xàtiva and Colón in 20 minutes using a SUMA Zone AB+ ticket or contactless bank card, or arrive at València Joaquín Sorolla on high-speed AVE, Ouigo, and Iryo trains from Madrid (100 minutes), Barcelona, and Seville.

Stay inside Ciutat Vella around La Seu, El Mercat, or El Carmen to walk everywhere in the medieval core, in Ruzafa and Eixample Gran Via for 1910s Modernista facades and neighbourhood dining, beside the City of Arts and Sciences for contemporary hotels on the Turia park, or in El Cabanyal and Malvarrosa for beachfront promenades.

Explore the helical stone columns of the UNESCO La Lonja de la Seda and 1,200 stalls at Mercado Central, climb the 207 steps of El Miguelete at Valencia Cathedral and see the Holy Chalice, walk the medieval gates of El Carmen, cycle the 9 km Turia Gardens from Bioparc to Gulliver Park, tour the City of Arts and Sciences and Oceanogràfic, stroll Malvarrosa Beach and El Cabanyal, and take a sunset boat on Albufera Lagoon.

Sit down at midday for authentic wood-fired Paella Valenciana cooked with chicken, rabbit, garrofó beans, and a crisp socarrat crust, sample seafood arroz a banda and arroz del senyoret, dip glazed fartons pastries into ice-cold tiger-nut horchata de chufa from Alboraya, and order an evening pitcher of Agua de Valencia.

Home to three UNESCO inscriptions, the fifteenth-century Silk Exchange, the medieval Water Tribunal that meets every Thursday at noon outside the Cathedral, and the fiery March Festival of Las Fallas, Valencia pairs bilingual Valencian and Castilian identity with Mediterranean orchard and rice-farming heritage.