12 Top Things to Do in Valencia, Spain

Designed by Félix Candela and opened in 2003, L'Oceanogràfic is the largest aquarium in Europe and one of the most striking buildings in the wider City of Arts and Sciences complex. Spread across 110,000 square metres, it holds 42 million litres of water and houses more than 45,000 animals across 500 species - including beluga whales, walruses, dolphins, sharks, penguins, and a 70m underwater tunnel through the oceans habitat.

The layout follows the world's marine ecosystems: temperate and tropical Mediterranean, Arctic, Antarctic, oceans, islands, marshlands, and the Red Sea. The dolphin show in the open-air dolphinarium runs three to five times a day depending on the season. The standout meal is at Submarino Restaurant - dining surrounded by a 360-degree fish tank in what is billed as the largest underwater dining room in the world.

Valencia Cathedral (Catedral de Santa María de Valencia) is one of the most important things to do in Valencia for anyone interested in religious history. Construction began in 1262 on the site of a former Roman temple and Moorish mosque, and continued for nearly two centuries - giving the building three distinct portals (Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque) and a layered architectural identity you can read at a glance.

The Holy Chalice Chapel houses an agate cup that the Vatican has accepted as the most credible candidate for the Holy Grail used at the Last Supper - the cathedral's long architectural history is a story in itself. Two Goya paintings hang in the San Francisco de Borja chapel. The 51m octagonal Miguelete bell tower (207 spiral steps) gives the best panoramic view over the Old Town. Mass is held daily, and the cathedral remains an active place of worship.

Plaza de la Virgen is the most beautiful square in Valencia's Old Town - a triangular plaza framed by the Basilica de la Mare de Déu dels Desemparats (Basilica of Our Lady of the Forsaken), the back of the cathedral, and the Palau de la Generalitat, the regional government headquarters since the 15th century. The reclining Turia Fountain at the centre depicts the river god surrounded by eight female figures representing the historical irrigation channels of the surrounding huerta farmland.

Every Thursday at noon, in front of the cathedral's Apostles' Door, the Tribunal de las Aguas (Water Tribunal) convenes. Eight elected farmer-judges hand down rulings on irrigation disputes in Valencian dialect - a court that has met without interruption for over 1,000 years and is recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. Sessions take 5-15 minutes and are open to the public, with a multilingual leaflet handed out at the start.

Built between 1482 and 1533, La Lonja de la Seda (the Silk Exchange) is the finest civic Gothic building in Spain and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1996. The Sala de Contratación - the Hall of Columns - is the masterpiece: 24 spiralling helical pillars rise to a vaulted ceiling 17m above, where merchants once traded silk, spices, and credit notes during Valencia's Golden Age.

Four sections make up the complex: the Hall of Contracts, the central Tower (used as a debtors' prison), the Pavilion of the Consulate, and the orange-tree courtyard at the heart. The carved stone friezes around the upper walls hide gargoyles and grotesques worth a closer look. Entry is just 2 EUR (free on Sundays and public holidays), and the building rarely sees the queues that form across the square at Mercado Central.

Mercado Central is one of the largest covered fresh-food markets in Europe, opened in 1928 inside a Modernist building of stained glass, ceramic tiles, wrought iron, and a soaring central dome topped by a parrot weathervane. It covers more than 8,000 square metres and hosts close to 1,000 active stalls selling everything that goes into a Valencian kitchen.

The layout repays a slow lap. Outer stalls sell fruit and vegetables grown in the surrounding huerta irrigated farmland; the central rings hold seafood, jamón ibérico carved to order, cheeses, dry-cured sausages, and the dried beans, snails, and bomba rice that go into a proper paella valenciana. Central Bar by Ricard Camarena - a 20-seat tapas counter inside the market - is one of the best lunches in the city. The market closes at 15:00 daily and all day Sunday.

The Torres de Serranos are two of the best-preserved medieval gateways in Europe - twin polygonal towers built between 1392 and 1398 by Pere Balaguer as the main entrance to the walled city from the north. Walking under the central arch you cross the same threshold by which kings, ambassadors, and traders entered Valencia for over five centuries.

The gates served as the city's grand ceremonial entrance until the 19th century, then became a noble prison after Valencia's other gates were demolished in 1865. Climb 50 steps to the rooftop terrace for one of the best skyline views in the Old Town - the cathedral's Miguelete bell tower, the rooftops of El Carmen, and the green ribbon of Turia Gardens to the north. Entry is 2 EUR, free on Sundays and public holidays. Each March the towers host the Crida - the Mayor's official call summoning the city to Las Fallas.

El Carmen (Barri del Carme) is the bohemian quarter of Valencia's Old Town, bounded by the medieval city walls between Torres de Serranos and Torres de Quart. Narrow stone lanes, tucked-away churches, plant-draped balconies, and large-scale street art make it the most photogenic neighbourhood in the city - and the best place to wander without a map.

Key stops: the IVAM (Institut Valencià d'Art Modern) for 20th-century Spanish art and free Sunday entry; the Iglesia de San Nicolás with its restored Baroque frescoes that have earned it the nickname Sistine Chapel of Valencia; Plaza Redonda, a circular 19th-century shopping plaza of haberdashers and lace stalls; and the Torres de Quart, the western twin to Torres de Serranos with cannonball pockmarks from the Napoleonic siege of 1808. By night, Plaza del Tossal and Calle Caballeros become the city's nightlife corridor.

Turia Gardens (Jardí del Túria) is the green spine of Valencia and one of the longest urban parks in Europe - a 9 km landscaped river of cycle paths, sports pitches, fountains, and pine groves running through the heart of the city. The park exists because of catastrophe: after the 1957 flood killed 81 people, the city diverted the Turia River south to a new channel and turned the dry riverbed into parkland.

The park crosses 18 historic and modern bridges and links almost every major attraction on this guide. At the east end sits the City of Arts and Sciences; at the west end, the Bioparc and Cabecera Park lake. Halfway along, Gulliver Park turns the giant from Jonathan Swift's novel into a 70m climbing structure of slides, ropes, and hidden tunnels - the single best thing in Valencia for travelling kids and not-so-kids. The Valenbisi public bike-share scheme (around 14 EUR for a one-week pass) is the obvious way to do the full length in one go.

Malvarrosa Beach (Platja de la Malvarrosa) is the most popular stretch of Valencia's 4 km city seafront - a wide ribbon of fine golden sand, 135m from the promenade to the water at its widest, with a long pedestrian passeig marítim lined with paella restaurants, ice-cream parlours, and surf rental kiosks.

The beach hides a literary past. Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the Valencian novelist whose Cañas y Barro and La Barraca defined the regional literary canon, lived in a villa on the seafront that is now the Casa-Museo Blasco Ibáñez. Hemingway favoured the same beach when researching For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Joaquín Sorolla painted the fishermen's wives mending nets in canvases that hang in Madrid's Sorolla Museum and the Hispanic Society in New York. Behind the beach, the Cabanyal barrio of low fishermen's houses with hand-painted ceramic tile facades is one of the most distinctive walks in the city.

Twenty minutes south of the city, L'Albufera Natural Park is a 21,120-hectare freshwater lagoon, dune system, and rice-field expanse that the Romans first irrigated and the Moors turned into a granary. Today it is the largest lake in Spain, an EU Special Protection Area for more than 350 bird species - including flamingos, herons, and the rare Audouin's gull.

The lagoon is the historic birthplace of paella valenciana. The original 19th-century recipe used what farm workers had to hand: rabbit, chicken, snails, garrofó beans, ferradura beans, and bomba rice cooked in a wide flat pan over orange wood from the surrounding groves. Sunday lunch in El Palmar village - the rice-growers' settlement on a small island in the lagoon - is the most authentic paella experience anywhere in Spain. Traditional flat-bottomed albuferenc boats run sunset trips on the lagoon (around 5 EUR for 30 minutes), and the light at golden hour with a thousand wading birds and a lateen sail in the foreground is unforgettable.

Opened in 2008 inside Cabecera Park at the western end of Turia Gardens, Bioparc Valencia rewrote the Spanish zoo concept by removing visible cages and barriers entirely. Animals and visitors share the same landscaped immersion zones - lions, gorillas, hippos, lemurs, and elephants are separated from the path by hidden moats, dry creek beds, and dense vegetation rather than fences.

The park's 10 hectares are organised into four African ecosystems: the equatorial forest of Central Africa (chimpanzees, lowland gorillas), the savannah of East Africa (Rothschild giraffes, white rhinos, leopards), the wetlands of Lake Magadi, and Madagascar (ring-tailed lemurs, fossas, radiated tortoises). Allow 3-4 hours for a full visit. The visitor flow is one-way and almost completely shaded, the cafe and picnic areas are well placed, and the absence of bars between you and the animals means even short visitors get clear views.