Calle Caballeros

City on a roll

It has a superb new ‘City’ of Arts and Sciences and it’s due to host the world’s greatest yachting contest – the America’s Cup – in 2007. No wonder Valencia’s reputation is on the up, says Robin Gauldie.

As Spain’s third largest city, Valencia – with the beaches of the Costa del Azahar and the Costa Blanca – receives 20 million visitors every year, and numbers are growing.

It’s easy to see why. Valencia is Spain at its most attractive, with superb restaurants, funky bars, mediaeval buildings that have earned it World Heritage status, and a growing portfolio of exciting new buildings and attractions.

The newest of these is the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia (Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts), Europe’s largest venue for the performing arts which opened in October, 2005 as the star attraction at the 35-hectare City of Arts and Sciences, where a science museum, planetarium and other attractions are surrounded by pools, parks and gardens.

Its architect, Valencia-born Santiago Calatrava, says he drew his inspiration from the sea. The complex – which has taken some 15 years to design and build and has cost the city 250 million euros – will finally be complete this autumn, with the opening of Europe’s newest opera house.

Around and within the complex, the Umbracle, a sward of trees and greenery, leads to the spectacular Prince Felipe Science Museum with its suspended platforms, vast expanses of glass and hands-on technology. L’Espai dels Xiquets is an area for three to six-year olds, with games, competitions, actors playing famous scientists, exhibitions, simulated space walks, experiments, magic tricks, riddles and workshops.

Mercado Central

But Valencia looks back as well as forward. Like Barcelona, the city passed through the hands of Romans, Visigoths and Muslim emirs. It was here El Cid, the semi-legendary Christian warrior, put the Moors to flight in 1094. The Moors were back a century or so later and weren’t finally ousted until 1238, when Jaime I made Valencia part of his kingdom of Aragon.

Valencia’s biggest must-see heritage site, the cathedral, dates from soon after that. Built in 1262, it has been added to and tinkered with since then – the Romanesque Puerto del Palau (Palace Door) is a survival from the 13th century, the Gothic Puerta de los Apostoles (Door of the Apostles) from a little later, and the main doorway, the Puerta de los Hierros, is 18th century Baroque. Above them all, the eight-sided, 68-metre high Miguelete campanile is Valencia’s most prominent historic landmark and within is a chapel that preserves an agate cup that Valencians proudly claim to be the true Holy Grail.