Berlitz Pocket Guide Valencia (Travel Guide eBook)

By Berlitz Publishing

Berlitz Pocket Guides: iconic style, a bestselling brand, this is the quintessential pocket-sized travel guide to Valencia

Plan your trip, plan perfect days and discover how to get around - this pocket-sized guide is a convenient, quick-reference companion to discovering what to do and see in Valencia, from top attractions like La Lonja market and the City of Arts and Sciences, to the tapas bars and nightlife haunts of the atmospheric Barrio del Carmen.This will save you time, and enhance your exploration of this fascinating city.

Compact, concise, and packed with essential information, this is an iconic on-the-move companion when you're exploring Valencia
Covers Top Ten Attractions, including foodie heaven Mercado Central and the futuristic City of Arts and Sciences and Perfect Day itinerary suggestions
Includes an insightful overview of landscape, history and culture
Handy colour maps on the inside cover flaps will help you find your way around
Essential practical information on everything from Eating Out to Getting Around
Inspirational colour photography throughout
Sharp design and colour-coded sections make for an engaging reading experience

About Berlitz: Berlitz draws on years of travel and language expertise to bring you a wide range of travel and language products, including travel guides, maps, phrase books, language-learning courses, dictionaries and kids' language products.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Insight Guides
• Release date: Apr 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781785730962

Book preview

How To Use This E-Book

Getting Around the e-Book

This Pocket Guide e-book is designed to give you inspiration and planning advice for your visit to Valencia, and is also the perfect on-the-ground companion for your trip.

The guide begins with our selection of Top 10 Attractions, plus a Perfect Itinerary feature to help you plan unmissable experiences. The Introduction and History chapters paint a vivid cultural portrait of Valencia, and the Where to Go chapter gives a complete guide to all the sights worth visiting. You will find ideas for activities in the What to Do section, while the Eating Out chapter describes the local cuisine and gives listings of the best restaurants. The Travel Tips offer practical information to help you plan your trip. Finally, there are carefully selected hotel listings.

In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

Maps

All key attractions and sights in Valencia are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map], tap once to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

Images

You’ll find lots of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of Valencia. Simply double-tap an image to see it in full-screen.

About Berlitz Pocket Guides

The Berlitz story began in 1877 when Maximilian Berlitz devised his revolutionary method of language learning. More than 130 years later, Berlitz is a household name, famed not only for language schools but also as a provider of best-selling language and travel guides.

Our wide-ranging travel products – printed travel guides and phrase books, as well as apps and ebooks – offer all the information you need for a perfect trip, and are regularly updated by our team of expert local authors. Their practical emphasis means they are perfect for use on the ground. Wherever you’re going – whether it’s on a short break, the trip of a lifetime, a cruise or a business trip – we offer the ideal guide for your needs.

Our Berlitz Pocket Guides are the perfect choice if you need reliable, concise information in a handy format. We provide amazing value for money – these guides may be small, but they are packed with information. No wonder they have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.

© 2018 Apa Digital (CH) AG and Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

Table of Contents

Valencia’s Top 10 Attractions

Top Attraction #1

Top Attraction #2

Top Attraction #3

Top Attraction #4

Top Attraction #5

Top Attraction #6

Top Attraction #7

Top Attraction #8

Top Attraction #9

Top Attraction #10

A Perfect Day In Valencia

Introduction

Valencia transformed

Living the good life

City and country

A Brief History

Muslim Valencia

The Middle Ages

Expulsion of the Moors

Industrialisation

The Civil War

The post-war period

Modern Valencia

Historical landmarks

Where To Go

City centre

Plaza del Ayuntamiento

Plaza de la Reina and Plaza Redonda

The cathedral

Outside the cathedral

Plaza de la Virgen

Barrio del Carmen

The market and La Lonja

Church of the Sts John

Mercado Central

La Lonja

Museo de Cerámica

The university and El Patriarca

Along the River Turia

The upper Turia

Museo de Bellas Artes

Los Viveros and beyond

The final stretch

The City of Arts and Sciences

Palau de les Arts

L’Hemisfèric

Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe

L’Umbracle

L’Oceanogràfic

The seafront

The port

The Paseo de Neptuno and Paseo Marítimo

The Cabanyal

Around the city

The huerta

La Albufera

Ceramics towns

El Puig Monastery

Excursions

Sagunt

Peñíscola

Gandía

Xàtiva (Játiva)

Denia and Jávea (Xàbia)

What To Do

Shopping

Where to look

Department stores and shopping centres

Markets and street markets

Fashion

Ceramics and other crafts

Fine food and wine

Paella pans

Furniture and antiques

Entertainment

Music

Theatre and cinema

Nightlife

Fiestas

Las Fallas

Easter week (Semana Santa)

Corpus Christi

July fair (Feria de Julio)

Sports

Spectator sports

Participant sports

Valencia for children

Calendar of events

Eating Out

Mealtimes

Paella

Other local specialities

Tapas

Wine and other drinks

Reading the Menu

To help you order

Menu reader

Restaurants

City centre

Restaurants

Tapas bars

Along the river

The seafront

Restaurants

Tapas bars

Outskirts

Bunol

Cullera

Denia

Gandia

Peniscola

Sagunt

Xativa

A–Z Travel Tips

A

Accommodation

Airports

B

Beaches

Bicycle hire

Budgeting for your trip

C

Camping

Car hire

Climate

Clothing

Crime and safety

D

Driving

E

Electricity

Embassies and consulates

Emergencies

G

Getting there

Guides and tours

H

Health and medical care

L

Language

Lost property

M

Maps

Media

Money

O

Opening times

P

Photography

Police

Post offices

Public holidays

R

Religion

T

Telephones

Time zones

Tipping

Toilets

Tourist information

Transport

V

Visas and entry requirements

W

Websites and internet access

Y

Youth hostels

Recommended Hotels

City centre

Seafront

Outskirts

Denia

Gandia

Xativa

Peniscola

Dictionary

English–Spanish

Spanish–English

Valencia’s Top 10 Attractions

Top Attraction #1

Shutterstock

Miguelete tower

Climb the distinctive belltower of the cathedral. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #2

Getty Images

Barrio del Carmen

The most fashionable part of the city, both night and day. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #3

123RF

Las Fallas

A spectacular festival where sculpture meets fire. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #4

istock

Torres de Serranos

A reminder of the medieval city. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #5

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Mercado Central

A temple for good food. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #6

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Museo de Bellas Artes

View their first-rate art collection. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #7

iStock

La Lonja

A silk merchants’ market dating from the 15th century. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #8

123RF

La Albufera

One of Spain’s most important bird habitats. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #9

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències

Valencia’s 21st-century architectural showcase, with lots to see and do. For more information, click here.

Top Attraction #10

iStock

Museo Nacional de Cerámica

A visual feast inside and out. For more information, click here.

A Perfect Day In Valencia

9.00am

Breakfast

Start your day in the splendidly tiled Horchateria Santa Catalina (Plaza Santa Catalina, 6). Its speciality is horchata, a sweet, milky drink made with tiger nuts usually drunk later in the day. A better choice for breakfast is a café con leche with an ensaimada (a soft, sweet bun).

10.00am

Medieval streets and Gothic architecture

For a tour of the old part of the city, head first for the Mercado Central, a glorious art nouveau market hall where you’ll see Valencia at its liveliest, and then cross the road to the graceful Gothic hall of La Lonja.

11.00am

Towering view

Then make your way through the atmospheric old streets of the Barrio del Carmen to the cathedral and climb its belfry, the Miguelete, for an unbeatable panoramic view over the city’s rooftops.

12 noon

To the seaside

Walk up the road from the Plaza del Virgen, behind the cathedral, to the river bank near the Torres del Serrano. Cross the pedestrian bridge in front of you to get to the tram station. Take line 4 to the port and have a stroll around the quayside, redeveloped for the America’s Cup.

2.00pm

Paella lunch

Enjoy Valencia’s signature dish with a long lazy paella lunch (ordered in advance) at La Pepica, or any other restaurant on the Paseo Neptuno which backs on to the beach.

4.00pm

Futuristic architecture

Catch metro line 5 to Alameda and walk up the river bank to the extraordinary gleaming white buildings of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències. Looking like something out of a sci-fi movie, the City of Arts and Sciences is modern architecture at its most striking.

7.00pm

Time for tapas

Head back to the centre and join the throngs converging on the city’s tapas bars for an evening drink and snack. One of the best is Bar Pilar (Moro Zeit, 13) which has been going since 1912 and is renowned for its mussels.

10.00pm

A night out

Have dinner in stylish Ricard Camarena Restaurant (Avda. Burjassot 54) and follow it with a nightcap in one of the many bars in the Barrio del Carmen. This is a good place to sample the city’s nightlife, but don’t get there too early as the action doesn’t get going properly until after midnight.

Introduction

If Valencians have a reputation in Spain for being a fortunate, rather blasé people, perhaps it isn’t so surprising. Spain’s third-largest city after Madrid and Barcelona, Valencia has a more privileged natural setting, a more agreeable climate and, consequently, arguably a better standard of living than either.

Founded by the Romans 2,000 years ago, it stands on a shallow scoop of a bay half-way down the Mediterranean coast. Curiously, however, the city wasn’t founded on the coast but a little way inland. Valencia, it always used to be said, had its back to the sea; with its commercial and fishing port kept at an avenue’s length from the city centre, so that it is possible to wander around its handsome monuments, squares and gardens without any sense of being by the seaside.

Dual roles

Valencia is a city of over 790,000 people. It is both the capital of a province of the same name and of an autonomous region, the Comunidad Valenciana, which stretches from the borders of Catalonia to the southern reaches of the Costa Blanca. Both city and region are bilingual with Valencian – a softer form of Catalan – enjoying equal status with Spanish (Castilian).

Neither does the city stand on a river – at least, not any more. It may have grown up on the right bank of the Turia, which flows off the high plateau in the centre of Spain into the Mediterranean, but after a disastrous flood in 1957, the decision was taken to divert the river along an artificial channel around the outer suburbs. You can still walk along the banks of what was the Turia, but you won’t be walking beside a river. Ingeniously, the redundant course has been turned into an attractive feature of a different kind: an elongated ribbon of parks and sports fields crossed by a mixture of historic and strikingly new bridges.

It might not be on the sea and no longer on a river, but Valencia still remains the hub of a prodigiously fertile plain, the huerta, an intricate mesh of market gardens, orange groves and rice fields. The harvest wealth from these fields has always been the foundation for Valencia’s prosperity and self-confidence, and the debt is duly acknowledged. Everywhere you look in the city there are motifs of fruits, flowers and a balmy country life glorified in stone and stained glass, but above all in the brilliance of multi-coloured ceramic tiles.

Valencia transformed

Yet for all its natural advantages, Valencia has never been well known abroad and until recently has received less than its fair share of foreign visitors. This is not for want of attractive qualities. Monuments it has aplenty – especially glorious Gothic buildings dating from its 15th-century heyday when it was one of the most prosperous mercantile cities in Europe. Museums and art galleries it has too, as well as gardens, elegant public squares and grand avenues lined with palms and massive ficus trees. All this in a compact, easily walkable city centre that was largely bypassed by tourists through ignorance rather than intent.

All smiles at the Mercado Central

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

Not any more. Simultaneously, the world has woken up to what Valencia has to offer just as Valencia itself has been waking up to the same. The city is in the grip of a new spirit for self-improvement and self-promotion. While the run-down medieval quarter