3 days in Valencia: the perfect Valencia itinerary, from Gothic gates to a city of the future

Sunset on the beach, a palm avenue inside a white steel ribcage, oysters at the counter and paella where it was born: three days is just enough to see both sides of Valencia.

Valencia is two cities in one. There’s the old town, a tangle of Gothic churches, medieval gates and squares where the cathedral claims to keep the Holy Grail. And there’s the city of the future, a run of bleached white buildings by Santiago Calatrava in the old bed of the river, with an aquarium at the end of it.

I spent three nights in the city and saw as much of both as I could, with the beach, plenty of good food and a glass of horchata in between. This itinerary follows my own three days, in the order that works best on the ground, with a few researched additions to fill the gaps.

Over three days you’ll walk the lanes of El Carmen, watch the sun set on Las Arenas, explore the City of Arts and Sciences and the Oceanogràfic, see the cathedral and the city’s newest art centre, and eat a proper paella valenciana.

3 days in Valencia at a glance

• Day 1: The Mercado de Colón, the lanes of El Carmen and sunset on Las Arenas beach.
• Day 2: Plaza del Ayuntamiento, the City of Arts and Sciences, the Oceanogràfic and oysters for lunch, then the Torres de Quart at dusk.
• Day 3: The Mercado Central, the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero, the cathedral and the Torres de Serranos, then horchata and paella.
• Base: one hotel in the centre for all three nights. I stayed at SH Colón, a short walk from the old town.
• Getting around: on foot in the old town, with the bus out to the City of Arts and Sciences and the metro and tram to the beach. You don’t need a car.

Day 1: El Carmen and sunset on the beach

Start gently on your first day. Drop your bags, get your bearings in the old town and save your energy for the evening, when half the city heads to the sea.

Have a coffee in the Mercado de Colón

If you’re staying near Calle Colón, as I did, your nearest landmark is the Mercado de Colón, and it’s a lovely place to start. Built in 1916 by Francisco Mora Berenguer, it’s one of the finest modernista buildings in the city, all iron, brick and coloured tiles.

It no longer works as a food market. Instead, it’s a covered square of cafés and bars, open from breakfast until late, with a branch of Horchatería Daniel inside if you want your first horchata straight away.

Suggested stay

I stayed three nights at SH Colón Valencia, a four-star hotel on Calle Colón, in the shopping streets a few minutes from the Mercado de Colón and about 15 minutes on foot from the cathedral. I’d give it 3 out of 5. I didn’t have breakfast there, so I can’t comment on it, but there are plenty of cafés nearby.

For something more special in the old town, the Caro Hotel fills a Gothic palace with a 12th-century Arab wall running through its restaurant. If you’d rather wake up by the sea, Las Arenas Balneario Resort sits right on the beach.

Get lost in the lanes of El Carmen

I spent my first afternoon in El Carmen, the oldest and most atmospheric corner of the old town. Its narrow lanes follow the line of the Muslim and Christian walls, and they’re lined with old balconied houses, independent shops and some of the city’s best street art, painted on shutters and walls on almost every corner.

It’s quiet in the heat of the afternoon and comes alive in the evening, when the tapas bars fill up and Plaza del Tossal becomes the meeting point. Bookmark Sabaters Vinos y Tapas for a glass of wine and a plate or two later in your trip.

Watch the sun go down on Las Arenas

This is a beach city too, and the sand is only a short ride from the centre. I headed out for the evening and walked the palm-lined promenade at Las Arenas as the sun went down, which is exactly what half the city seems to do on a warm night.

Las Arenas runs into Malvarrosa, a long, wide stretch of golden sand with beach bars and restaurants along the front. If you arrive early enough, there’s time for a swim before the light goes.

Eat in El Cabanyal

Behind the beach, El Cabanyal is the old fishermen’s quarter, a grid of low houses covered in colourful tiles. It’s worth a wander before dinner at Bodega Casa Montaña, a tavern open since 1836 with around 600 wines on its list.

Day 2: The City of Arts and Sciences and the Oceanogràfic

Day two is all about the city of the future. Start early, as the white stone of the City of Arts and Sciences throws the heat back at you by midday, and save the old town’s medieval gate for the cooler evening.

Start the day in Plaza del Ayuntamiento

I started my second morning on the city’s main square, a wide triangle of early 20th-century grandeur with the clock-towered City Hall on one side and the Central Post Office, with its glass dome, on the other. The streets around it are full of modernista buildings with ceramic flourishes and domed corners.

I had breakfast at Kirò Caffè, a small Italian café on Carrer del Frare just off the square, where I had a thick slab of focaccia filled with ham. It opens at 9am and is closed on Sundays. Afterwards, I came across a procession for San Cristóbal, the patron saint of drivers, with his statue riding through the streets on the back of a flower-decked lorry. Valencia loves a celebration, so keep an eye out for whatever is on while you’re there.

Walk among Calatrava’s white giants at the City of Arts and Sciences

Nothing prepares you for your first sight of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències. Santiago Calatrava, who was born in Valencia, designed most of this two-kilometre run of buildings in the old riverbed, and the result is part science fiction, part skeleton: bleached white curves, glittering trencadís tiles and shallow turquoise pools that reflect it all back.

I was there by late morning; get there earlier if you can. The Museu de les Ciències, the long building that looks like the ribcage of a whale, is a hands-on science museum whose ground floor is free to wander. The Hemisfèric, shaped like a giant eye that blinks open over its pool, screens films on a huge domed screen roughly every hour from 11am. Beyond them rise the Palau de les Arts opera house, the blue-tiled Agora and the harp-like Assut de l’Or bridge.

Find some shade in L’Umbracle

Running along one side of the complex, L’Umbracle is a covered garden walk under a row of white arches, planted with palms, bitter orange trees and Mediterranean shrubs. It’s free, it’s shaded, and it frames the surrounding buildings through its ribs, so it’s the best place to take in the whole complex.

Look out for the sculptures dotted along it, including a blue trencadís figure among the palms whose mosaic of broken tiles is a nod to Gaudí. On summer evenings part of L’Umbracle becomes a terrace bar, so the same walk feels completely different after dark.

Come face to face with sharks at the Oceanogràfic

At the far end of the complex, the Oceanogràfic bills itself as the largest aquarium in Europe, with seven marine environments and around 45,000 animals from 500 species. Its shark tunnel is the longest underwater tunnel in Europe, and it’s also home to the only belugas on the continent.

I walked through the shark tunnel, past the batfish, which look permanently surprised, and on to the jellyfish, pulsing through their tanks like slow-motion lanterns. Allow at least a couple of hours, more if you want to catch the dolphin show.

Slurp oysters at Ostras Pedrín Ciencias

After the aquarium I walked a few minutes up the road for lunch at Ostras Pedrín Ciencias, an oyster bar on Calle Escultor Luis Bolinches Compañ. It’s a bright, casual room built around a long counter, and the menu is short and very good at what it does: oysters from Asturias, France and Valencia itself, plus the classic vermouth snacks of tins, cured fish and roe.

I had a platter of oysters with lemon, slices of mojama (salt-cured tuna) in olive oil, tomato toasts and a tin of crab on ice. It was one of my favourite meals of the trip; read my full Ostras Pedrín review. It’s the second outpost of a bar that opened on Calle Bonaire in the old town in 2015, so if you’re in the centre, that’s the original.

Take a break in the heat of the afternoon

Valencia slows down in the afternoon, and so should you. Head back to your hotel for a rest, or walk back towards the centre through the Jardín del Turia, the park that fills the old riverbed. After the floods of 1957, the city diverted the river and, after a long campaign by its residents, turned the dry bed into more than nine kilometres of gardens, running tracks and orange groves, crossed by 18 bridges.

See the cannonball scars on the Torres de Quart

I came back into the old town in the early evening and walked out to the Torres de Quart, on its western edge. The city walls came down in the 19th century, but two of the great gates survived, and this is the rougher and in many ways more striking of the two. The towers were built in the 15th century, and the stone is still pitted with damage from French cannon during Napoleon’s siege of the city in 1808.

Have dinner in Extramurs

Just beyond the gate, Extramurs, literally “outside the walls”, is a mostly residential neighbourhood with far fewer visitors than the old town. I had dinner at Bar Ricardo, a seafood bar on Carrer del Doctor Zamenhof, with fried courgette flowers and scallops in their shells. It’s small and popular, so book ahead, and it’s closed on Sundays and Mondays. Valencians eat late, so don’t expect a restaurant to fill up before about 9.30pm.

Day 3: The old town, the cathedral and paella

Your last day is for the old town’s big sights, packed into a walkable loop. Start at the market while it’s at its busiest, see the art and the cathedral in the morning, then reward yourself with horchata and a long paella lunch.

Graze your way round the Mercado Central

The Mercado Central is one of the largest food markets in Europe and one of the most beautiful. Opened in 1928, it fills about 8,000 square metres under iron, glass and coloured tiles, topped by a dome with a ceramic parrot weathervane.

Inside, the stalls are piled with oranges, Valencian tomatoes, jamón, salt cod, live snails and every fish the Mediterranean can offer. Across the road, the Lonja de la Seda, the old silk exchange, is the city’s UNESCO World Heritage Site, where spiral stone columns twist about 17 metres up to the vaulted roof of the trading hall.

See Kiefer and Kapoor at the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero

From the market, it’s a ten-minute walk to the CAHH, which I visited mid-morning. It opened in late 2023 in the restored Palau Valeriola, a 17th-century palace on Calle del Mar, and it’s full of big names: Anselm Kiefer, Anish Kapoor, Jaume Plensa, Tomás Saraceno and the largest display of Manolo Valdés’s work anywhere.

The piece everyone photographs is Olafur Eliasson’s Tunnel for unfolding time, a kaleidoscope of coloured glass that you walk straight through. Head down to the basement too: during the restoration, the builders found the remains of the city’s Roman circus, now on show beneath the palace.

Pass through Plaza del Patriarca

On the way to the cathedral, I passed through Plaza del Patriarca, a quiet square between the old university and the Colegio del Patriarca. The college was founded in 1583 by Juan de Ribera, the Archbishop of Valencia, and its small museum holds paintings by Caravaggio, Ribera and El Greco, along with the last manuscript Thomas More wrote before his execution.

Look out for the stuffed crocodile, known as the dragon of the Patriarca, that hangs by the church entrance. Nobody is quite sure how it got there, and it was said to keep children quiet during Mass. The museum is closed on Sundays.

Search for the Holy Grail in Valencia Cathedral

The cathedral was built from 1262 on the site of a mosque, which itself stood on a Roman temple. Walk around the outside and you’ll see three doorways in three styles: a Romanesque one, a Gothic one and a Baroque one.

Inside, the big draw is a small agate cup in the Chapel of the Holy Chalice. Tradition holds that it is the cup Christ used at the Last Supper, and it has been kept here since the 15th century. Whether or not you believe it, the Gothic nave with its golden altar is worth the visit on its own. Outside, the octagonal Micalet bell tower rises over Plaza de la Reina, with 207 steps to a view over the rooftops for €3, while Plaza de la Virgen, on the north side, is the prettiest square in the city.

Walk out to the Torres de Serranos

A few minutes north of the cathedral, the Torres de Serranos are the grander of the two surviving gates. They were built between 1392 and 1398 by the master builder Pere Balaguer to guard the road north to Barcelona, and today they stand at the old town’s edge, looking out over the Turia gardens.

You can climb up through the gatehouse to the battlements for a view over the old town and the riverbed. It’s also where the Fallas festival officially begins each year, with the crida from the top of the towers.

Cool down with horchata at Horchatería Daniel

Horchata, the cold, milky drink made from tiger nuts, sugar and water, is the city’s great summer refresher. It’s sweet, nutty and dairy-free, and you dunk fartons, long sugar-glazed buns, into it.

Horchatería Daniel has been making it since 1949, and its original shop is in Alboraya, the village just north of the city where most of Spain’s tiger nuts are grown. It also has shops in town, including the one I stopped at in the old town, on the corner of Lluís Vives. My guide to horchata in Valencia covers how to order it and where else to drink it.

Eat paella valenciana where it belongs

Paella was born in the rice fields around Valencia, and the city takes it seriously. A true paella valenciana has no seafood at all: it’s chicken and rabbit, flat green beans, garrofó (big white butter beans), often snails, and a thin layer of saffron-yellow rice cooked in the wide, shallow pan that gives the dish its name.

I had mine for lunch at Los Gómez Correos, a taberna on Calle Correos, a short walk from Plaza del Ayuntamiento. It came in the traditional way, with chicken, snails and beans, and it’s open every day from noon to midnight, which makes it an easy option, since many paella places serve rice only at lunchtime.

Spend your last evening in Ruzafa

South of the centre, Ruzafa (Russafa in Valencian) is the city’s creative neighbourhood, full of independent shops, galleries and bars around the Mercado de Ruzafa, with its famously colourful facade. Come for the tardeo, the Valencian habit of early-evening drinks on a terrace that rolls into dinner, at anything from a cheap tapas bar to Canalla Bistro by the city’s best-known chef, Ricard Camarena.

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Take a boat out on the Albufera at sunset

About 10 kilometres south of the city, the Albufera is a huge freshwater lagoon fringed by rice fields, Spain’s largest freshwater lake and the place where paella was invented. Head to the village of El Palmar, take a trip in a flat-bottomed boat (about 40 minutes, usually under €10), then stay for paella in one of its rice restaurants.

Sunset is the most popular time for the boats, so book ahead. EMT bus 24 runs from the centre to El Palmar in under an hour, or join a tour that combines the boat ride with lunch.

Cycle the Turia gardens to Bioparc

The Turia gardens are flat and traffic-free, so the best way to see the whole length is by bike: hire one in the centre or use the Valenbisi bike-share. Along the way you’ll pass the Parque Gulliver, where children climb all over a giant figure of Gulliver.

At the western end, Bioparc is a zoo built around the idea of immersion, where near-invisible barriers, water and rock separate you from the giraffes, lemurs, gorillas and elephants. Adult tickets are €31.50 online, and you should allow at least four hours.

Handy tips for planning your 3 days in Valencia

Top tips

• Eat on Valencian time. Lunch runs from about 2pm to 4pm and dinner rarely starts before 9pm. Paella is a lunch dish, and many rice restaurants don’t serve it at night.
• Watch the closing days. The Mercado Central is closed on Sundays and the CAHH on Mondays, so plan your old town day around them.
• Do the big sights early. The City of Arts and Sciences and the Oceanogràfic are calmer and cooler at opening time, and the white stone is dazzling by midday in summer.
• Use the free Sundays. The Lonja and both city gates are free on Sundays and public holidays.

What to pack for Valencia

Bring comfortable shoes for the cobbles, swimwear and a beach towel, sunglasses and a sun hat, and a light layer for the evenings in spring and autumn. Cover your shoulders for the cathedral. For the full list, see my Spain packing list.

Best time to visit Valencia

Spring and autumn are ideal, warm but not scorching, with sea that’s swimmable from late spring. Summer is hot and humid, and good for the beach if you plan your sightseeing for the mornings. March is all about Las Fallas, from 1 to 19 March, when the city fills with giant satirical sculptures and burns them on the last night, so book months ahead if you want to be there for it.

Getting around Valencia

Metro lines 3 and 5 run from the airport, 8 kilometres away, to the centre in about 20 minutes (€4.80, plus a reusable card). High-speed trains from Madrid take under two hours, which also makes Valencia one of the best day trips from Madrid. The old town is easy to walk, buses run out to the City of Arts and Sciences, and the metro and tram reach the beach. The Valencia Tourist Card gives free buses and metro, plus discounts on the big sights, from about €15 for 24 hours.

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Read next

• 23 things to do in Valencia, the city that turned its river into a park
• The perfect Spain itinerary: 10 days in Spain
• 4 days in Mallorca: the perfect Mallorca itinerary
• 50 famous landmarks in Spain
• The best beaches in Spain
• Spain travel guide

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