Valencia – a soft beginning • NomadSiv

(1.5 days)

Quick links to main sights

If you’d like to jump ahead to planning your own visit, check out the practical notes section for train bookings. Plus, here are quick external links to the main sights:

Impressions

Valencia, though not part of Moorish Andalusia, was a convenient stop to fly to and start our Spanish Andalusia adventure by train. Our one and a half days here were a nice combination of relaxed plazas and strolls through the Turia gardens, as well as tourist sights.

Jardín del Turia

Much of the city’s rhythm unfolds along the Jardín del Turia, a long green spine created from the old riverbed after devastating floods in the 1950s. Walking through it, it’s hard to imagine that this was once a destructive river – the transformation feels quietly radical. Along the garden’s paths, pools of water had formed; in some, small groups of pigeons were bathing. Overhead, a dramatic sky – mostly bright blue, edged with dark clouds – lent the scene a moody, shifting atmosphere.

Plaza del Carmen

The old town offered relaxed plazas and café terraces where it was easy to linger. This was where I first encountered café bombón – espresso layered with sweet condensed milk – and became mildly obsessed. Horchata, made from tiger nuts, tasted unexpectedly familiar, reminding me of neera, a palm nectar from western India.

At the Centre del Carme, a contemporary art space near Plaza del Carmen, we encountered a mix of temporary and permanent exhibitions. One show, designed for schoolchildren, featured large murals of common regional birds – a gentle, accessible way of speaking about diversity and coexistence. Upstairs, the tone shifted. An exhibition addressing racial discrimination was more confronting and stayed with me long after, while other contemporary works, though competently presented, faded more quickly from memory.

Torres de Serranos

When at the Torres de Serranos I learned about its role during the Spanish Civil War, when it was used to safeguard artworks evacuated from Madrid. The fact itself was striking; the structure is monumental, but also open on its sides, more gateway than fortress. Standing there, it was hard not to wonder how much protection it could realistically have offered to fragile paintings and sculptures in such turbulent times. It was likely the best refuge available at a moment when time mattered more than architectural perfection.

Valencia Cathedral

Valencia Cathedral stands on the remains of a Roman temple that later became the mosque of Arab Balansiya – our first encounter with the region’s characteristic layering of Roman, Moorish, and Catholic histories. Inside, the cathedral’s museum houses valuable paintings and a chalice believed by some to be used by Jesus at the Last Supper – claims that add another layer of narrative to an already crowded past.

La Lonja de la Seda

At La Lonja de la Seda, the former Silk Exchange, the Columned Hall felt cool and dark beneath its high ceiling, the helical pillars drawing the eye upward. The sunny Orange Tree Courtyard, by contrast, reminded me why I’m drawn to homes and spaces organised around an inner courtyard – secret and sheltered, yet open to the sky. This was a building conceived for secular, commercial life rather than religion, a notable example of what is known as European civil Gothic architecture.

City of Arts and Science

Valencia’s answer to Sydney’s Opera House, a modern complex of glass and steel buildings as opposed to all the other historic sights. The buildings are cleverly surrounded by shallow, ceramic-tiled basins of clear blue water; seen from either end, they give the impression of outsized marine forms – a fish at one end, a blue whale at the other – emerging from the surface.

Festive lights

In Valencia, I noticed a shooting-star motif among the Christmas lights. Seeing the same shooting-star motif again in the next city made me realise its Catholic symbolism – a detail that had initially escaped me.

Flora and fauna

Orange trees, multiple varieties of palms, and chinaberry trees were everywhere, the latter laden with pale berries that look inviting and are anything but edible. Though it was December, trees all over the city were ablaze with autumn colours. One species, in particular, could stop you mid-walk: the ginkgo. A living fossil, virtually unchanged for some 200 million years, its delicate fan-shaped leaves turn the most unapologetic yellow in autumn.

Flocks of parakeets lived boisterously in the trees in Turia garden.

Street art

European cities are steeped in formal, historical art – preserved in museums and cathedrals. But informal contemporary expression, in the form of graffiti and street art, also shapes one’s experience of the city. Valencia, in particular, offered some striking examples.