Valencia, Spain: Paella, Futuristic Architecture, and the Old City

The City of Arts and Sciences (Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències), designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, is the defining image of modern Valencia. The complex sits at the end of the old Turia river bed — the river was diverted south after the catastrophic flood of 1957 and the original course is now a nine-kilometer park — and includes the Hemisfèric (IMAX cinema), the Museu de les Ciències Príncep Felip (science museum), and the Oceanogràfic (Europe's largest oceanarium). The Oceanogràfic alone takes three hours; the science museum is better for families with children; the complex is visually extraordinary at dusk when the white concrete and blue glass pools reflect the sky.

The old city around the Mercado Central and the Cathedral is the historical center. The Mercado Central, a 1928 modernist covered market, is one of the largest in Europe — 8,000 square meters of fresh produce stalls under a stained-glass dome. Arrive before 2 p.m. when it closes; the produce sellers have the market; the tourists have one half and the locals the other. The Cathedral next door contains what Valencia claims is the Holy Grail (a first-century agate cup that several medieval popes recognized as the one used at the Last Supper — the Vatican has not officially weighed in). The climb to the Miguelete bell tower takes about ten minutes and gives a rooftop view over the orange trees of the old city.

Paella should be eaten in Valencia and not in a tourist restaurant on the harbor. Authentic Valencian paella is made with chicken and rabbit (not seafood), uses sofregit (a tomato-based sofrito), and is cooked outdoors over a wood fire in a wide flat pan until a caramelized crust (the socarrat) forms on the bottom. Restaurants in the Albufera natural park, twenty minutes south of the city, specialize in this; Las Arenas beach, five kilometers from the city, has a well-regarded concentration of paella houses. Lunch is the meal for paella; the ovens are not typically running at dinner.

The Turia Gardens, the nine-kilometer linear park in the former river bed, is the city's open air living room — playgrounds, sports courts, rose gardens, the Palau de la Música concert hall, and the City of Arts and Sciences all threaded along a single car-free corridor.