Valencia (Spain)

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Quick Facts

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Coordinates

• Latitude: 39.470239
• Longitude: -0.376805

On Travellerspoint

• 13 Valencia (Spain) Apartments
• 17 Valencia (Spain) Guesthouses
• 12 Valencia (Spain) Hostels
• 10 Valencia (Spain) Hotels

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Introduction

Plaza Ayuntamiento (Valencia)

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Valencia is a popular sea-side city on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. While the beach is an obvious drawcard for the city, Valencia's charm is its emblematic combination of the old and new: Traditional Baroque, Gothic and Neo-Classical architecture is contrasted with the ultra-modern City of Arts and Sciences, a massive educational complex designed to symbolise the Space Age.
The city itself has about 800,000 inhabitants, but the total urban area is almost twice that size and the metropolitan area almost three times as big, making it one of the bigger ones in Spain.
For more information, also check the official Valencia Tourism website.

Neighbourhoods

Sights and Activities

Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències

Valencia 2008 - City of Arts and Sciences

© All Rights Reserved Derdia

The Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències was designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava and is a series of five buildings in a contemporary style in the dried river bed of the now diverted River Turia. This place is worth walking around by day or night because of its stunning design. There are many buildings dedicated the arts located in the complex including:

• El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía (Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts) is an amazing an amazing opera house and cultural centre in the city. There are several different stages that can fit between 400 and 1700 people.
• L'Hemisfèric, contains an IMAX theatre, Planetarium and Laserium.
• L'Umbracle is a nice walkway and garden area.
• El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe (the Museum of Sciences) is a museum dedicated to the sciences. There are exhibits ranging from spy science all the way to biometrics.
• L'Oceanogràfic is one of the largest aquariums in Europe with more then 45,000 animals, which include sharks, penguins, dolphins, sea lions, beluga whales and walruses. The park is divided into ten areas that reflect different kinds of habitats.

Beaches

• Port Beach
• Malvarossa Beach

Other Sights and Activities

• Basílica De La Virgen De Los Desamparados is a nice gothic style church.
• The Cathedral of Valencia is a stunning cathedral with a great dome and a long history.
• Lonja de la Seda (Silk Exchange) is a stunning late gothic style civil structure built from 1482 to 1548. The designer Guillem Sagrera made the building at the height of the cities economic power in the 15th century.
• Plaça de l'Ajuntament is the largest square in the city and contains the town hall, a classical cinema and many restaurants and bars.

Events and Festivals

Freckled Falla

© All Rights Reserved UStravel23

• Falles is a city tradition that celebrates Saint Joseph's Day on the 19th of March. Each year every neighbourhood in the city has a group of people that create a falla, which is then burnt. The entire city comes out for the festival in their Felles dress and it can get very crazy.
• La Tomatina, is a festival that starts the week before the last Wednesday of August in the town of Buñol which is 38 kilometres outside of Valencia. For the week before people party and there is a famous cooking contest the night before the fight. On the last Wednesday of August the massive tomato fight begins with 20,000 to 40,000 tourist coming to participate in this epic battle in a town of only 9,000 people.

Weather

Valencia has a typical Mediterranean climate with warm and dry summers and mild but wetter winters. Summers last from late May to September when average daytime temperatures are mostly between 26 and 30 °C while nights are warm at 18 to 21 °C. Winters last from December to February when during the day the temperatures are between 16 and 18 °C and nights average about 7 or 8 °C. Annual precipitation is low at around 450mm. Most of the rain falls from September to December and summers (June to August) are driest.

Getting There

By Plane

Valencia Airport (VLC) is the 8th busiest airport in Spain. The airport has flights to about 15 European countries with about 6 million passengers a year. The airport is connected to the city by a regular bus, which takes 45 minutes, a shuttle service, which takes 20 minutes, and the metro, which takes 15 minutes.
Air Nostrum has flights to a number of Spanish cities, including Madrid, Bilbao, Seville and Málaga, and others include Casablanca, Dubrovnik, Madeira and Lisbon. Ryanair flies to/from Bari, Bologna, Brussels, Cagliari, Dublin, East Midlands, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Milan, Pisa, Rome and Weeze (near Düsseldorf).
Other airlines have flights to places like Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva, New York, Prague, Zürich, Bucharest and Stuttgart.

By Train

Estación Del Norte is the main train station in town and is designed in an art deco style.
RENFE is Spain's national railway company and there are highspeed trains travelling to and from Madrid and Barcelona, among other cities.

By Car

From Madrid, Valencia can be reached by taking the A-3 highway. From Barcelona, you take the A-7 going south along the coast. The A-7 continues to Alicante and Cartagena. The A-23 connects Zaragoza with Valencia.

By Bus

Eurolines has buses to other destinations in Spain, Morocco and many European countries/cities.

By Boat

Balearic Islands

• Acciona Trasmediterránea has ferries from Valencia to the Balearic Islands, like Mallorca and Ibiza. Balearia and Iscomar offers roughly the same connections as well.

Getting Around

By Car

Apart from taking a taxi, using your own car is not really advisable. It can get crowded and parking is expensive.

By Public Transport

Valencia Metro has six lines that make it very easy to get around the city, even to the airport. A one way tickets costs €1.40.
EMT has buses all around the city.

By Foot

Most of Valencia can easily be explored on foot, though the beaches and City of Arts and Sciences requires some form of public transport, taxi or bike.

By Bike

Do You Bike has bikes for rent for €7 a day.

Eat

Drink

Valencia has a great nightlife. The alternative/bohemian bars and nightclubs are mainly located in the Carmen area, while the student nightlife is concentrated around Blasco Ibanez. The more mainstream weekend nightlife is around the Canovas and Juan Llorens areas. During the summer it is possible to party on the beach at Port and Malvarossa Beach.

Sleep

Budget

Mid-Range

Upscale

Work

Learn

• University of Valencia
• Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
• International University of Southern Europe, Valencia
• Valencia International Business School

Keep Connected

Internet

Phone

See also: International Telephone Calls

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