The Spanish city combines wonderful museums with world-class modern architecture and magnificent food - oh, and a sickly-sweet drink, writes Adam Harvey
IT'S A TYPICALLY warm, still evening in Mediterranean Spain when a long exploration of the labyrinthine alleys of central Valencia leads to an open-air bar, so it seems appropriate to pause and sample the city's signature drink, the legendary agua de Valencia.
Behind the bar the waitress nods approvingly at our order and makes several trips to the spirits shelf as she assembles the cocktail. She finally brings over a jug of what looks like orange juice. The thirsty tourists bring it to their lips . . . and wince. It's like drinking a glass of maple syrup, so unbearably sweet that your teeth hurt even before you put down the glass.
Who knows why Valencians celebrate this ghastly concoction, which requires that sugar be added to an already-sweet mix of orange juice, spirits and cava? They have so many other, better things to boast about: magnificent food, heavy-handed bartenders, wonderful museums, world-class architecture, an intact old city centre and a meandering park that equals the vision of those who planned some of the world's great urban amenities, such as Manhattan's Central Park and Dublin's own Phoenix Park.
The Jardines del Antiguo Cauce del Turia stretch eight kilometres across the city, a belt of cycle paths, gardens, playing fields and children's playgrounds that occupy the dry bed of the River Turia. The river was diverted after floods in 1957, and the government considered turning the old bed into a motorway. Instead it created a thoroughfare with a much more pleasant pace. It stretches from the city's zoo, past the old town, beside a unique play park: El Gran Gulliver, a concrete giant the size of a football field, lying on his back and covered with children clambering and sliding over his smooth surfaces.
The gardens meander through to the modern architectural showcases of the City of Arts and Sciences. This city within a city is largely the work of Valencia's own Santiago Calatrava, designer of the James Joyce Bridge over the Liffey in Dublin, and the proposed train station at New York's Ground Zero, and is dominated by the otherworldly Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía - the opera house - a building that looks like a spaceman's helmet or some kind of intergalactic headquarters, and is as stunning as Sydney Opera House.
Calatrava doesn't spend much time in Valencia these days - he's based in the US, overseeing projects such as the Chicago Spire - although his presence looms large in a city that celebrates several thousand years of great constructions and superb design, from the glass roof placed over the footings of ancient Roman baths through the cleanly restored stonework of the old city gates to the twisting spirals of the Lonja de los Mercaderes (community exchange) and the alabaster windows and blue-glazed Moorish-style tiles of the city's cathedral.
The cathedral, which has been restored to its former glory after being used as a parking garage during the Spanish Civil War by the city's Republican defenders, is also the home of the most striking view in town. A hard-won 10-minute climb up a narrow spiral staircase leads to a platform beneath the cathedral bell tower. From here, 50m above the cafes and street markets, there's an unimpeded view over the old city and out to the gleaming white Calatrava developments at the City of Arts and Sciences.
Even the fittest tourists will raise a sweat during the climb, and only the lingering taste of the syrupy agua de Valencia will prevents them from ordering another when at last they descend to a café at street level.
• Adam Harvey travelled to Valencia courtesy of the Valencia Tourist Board, www.turisvalencia.com
Go There
Ryanair (
www.ryanair.com) and Iberia (
www.iberia.com/ie) fly from Dublin to Valencia
Where to stay, where to eat and where to go if you're heading to the Spanish city for a weekend
5 places to stay
Sorolla Palace. 58 Avenida de las Cortes Valencianas, 00- 34-961-868700, www.hotelsorollapalace.com. Doubles at €250 but specials as low as €59 during the summer low season. Modern, good-sized rooms. Close to the airport, about 10 minutes by taxi from the city centre. Great breakfast buffet.
Hotel Barceló Valencia. 11 Avenida de Francia, 00-34-963- 306344, www.barcelo.com. Between €100 and €150 for a standard room in this four-star hotel opposite the City of Arts and Sciences.
Hotel Las Arenas. 22-24 Calle Eugenia Viñes, 00-34-963- 120600, www.hotel-lasarenas.com. Doubles start at €250. Luxury hotel on the strand at Las Arenas Beach, away from the city centre but close to the America's Cup museum.
Hostal Antigua Morellana. 2 En Bou, 00-34-963-915773, www.hostalam.com. Rooms €65 per night. Cheap and cheerful digs in the city centre.
Hotel Petit Palace Bristol. 3 L'Abadia de San Martin, 00-34-963-945100, info@hotelpetitpalacebristol.comRooms cost from €100 to €160 at this city-centre hotel.
5 places to eat
Submarino. Junta de Murs I Valls, 00-34-961-975565. Michelin-star food in the unlikeliest of locations, underground in the aquarium at the City of Arts and
Sciences. A tasting menu can last three hours, but there's plenty to watch between courses thanks to the fish tank that encircles the restaurant.
Bamboo. Mercado de Colón. 19 Calle Jorge Juan, 00-34-963-530337. Another underground restaurant, this time beneath the restored steel frame of the Colón Market. Minimalist cuisine in stylish surroundings.
La Lola Restaurant. 8 Calle Subida del Toledè, 00-34- 963-918045. Funky little restaurant in a passage close to the cathedral and just off Plaza de la Reina. Suberb steak and tapas.
Ocho y Medio. 5 Plaza Lope de Vega, 00-34-963-922022. Named after Federico Fellini's film Otto e Mezzo, or 8½.Comic-strip decor. Modernist international menu with Mediterranean touches.
La Bodeguilla del Gato. 10 Calle Catalans. 00-34-963- 918235. Traditional Andalusian tapas bar offering dishes such as flamenquines (pork croquettes) and patatas bravas (crisp spiced potatoes). About €25 per person with drinks.
5 places to go
Bioparc Valencia. Parque de Cabecera, 3 Avenida Pío Baroja, www.bioparcvalencia.es. There are no bars or cages in this "immersion zoo". The lions, elephants and hundreds of other animals are separated from the crowd and each other by moats, banks and other clever features.
Jardines del Antiguo Cauce del Turia. www.culturia.org. Hire a bicycle and explore the riverbed of the diverted Turia River, Valencia's "green lung", and marvel at the courage of city planners who resisted temptation to sell the 250m-wide, eight-kilometre- long space to developers.
City of Arts and Sciences. 00-34-902-100031, www.cac.es. Worth the visit even if you don't enter the opera house or science museum. The latter is a child's paradise, full of hands-on experiments and displays. One of the most engaging exhibits is a glass incubator full of eggs, with chicks hatching before your eyes.
L'Oceanogràfic Aquarium. Camino de las Moreras, 00-34-902-100031, www.cac.es. The star attraction of Europe's largest aquarium is a pair of excitable beluga whales that dart around their tank like boy racers in a supermarket car park. The sharks and dolphins are wisely separated.
Valencia Cathedral. Plaza de la Reina. The cathedral sits on the ruins of a Roman temple of Diana. Among the relics stored in remarkably accessible nooks and crannies is what is said to be Christ's chalice from the Last Supper. Somebody tell Dan Brown.
Shopping
Hit the cobbled lanes of the old city. The big hitters (Zegna, Hermès, Louis Vuitton) are on Calle Poeta Querol and Plaza del Patriarca. Calle Colón is home to the Valencian designers Tonuca and Adolfo Dominguez. Calle de la Paz is probably the most interesting: it hosts Carolina Herrera and offbeat local designers, including Amelia Delhom, Divatto, El Mercader de Indias, Platón Sartí and Vicente Gracia.
Hot spot
Fox Congo, 35 Calle de Caballeros, 00-34-963-925527. Funky club in the heart of heart of Valencia's old town, said to have the most expensive bar in the world. Not because the drinks are overpriced (a round of five gins and tonic came in under €20) but because the bar is made of onyx and alabaster - sheets of gypsum cut translucently thin. The stone is used instead of stained glass in the windows of Valencia Cathedral, providing a soft, white light. The club fills with dancers from about 11pm.
Coffee break
Café San Jaume, just down the road from Fox Congo, on Calle de Caballeros, and Café de las Horas, in the old city centre on Calle Conde de Almodóvar, are both warmly recommended by Valencians, who need plenty of strong coffee to restore their body's equilibrium after all that sugary agua de Valencia.