Paella started in the rice fields. The city grew round it.
Which paella class actually takes you round the Central Market first. What the Albufera boat costs at sunset. Whether the Oceanogràfic combo beats a single ticket. Reviews of every tour you can book in Valencia.
A kitchen, an old-town cellar, the lagoon and a cave river.
Four bookings a first Valencia trip is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first afternoonPaella Cooking Class, Wine Tasting & Central Market in ValenciaShop the Central Market with the cook, then make the rice over an open flame and eat what you made.
02The old-town eveningValencia Old Town Tour with Wine & Tapas in 11th Century Historic MonumentWine and small plates inside an eleventh-century house behind the cathedral. Book the later sitting.
03The lagoon dayAlbufera Day Trip with Boat Tour and TransferOut to the Albufera rice fields and a flat-bottomed boat at the hour the water turns copper.
04The day undergroundCaves of San José Guided Excursion and TicketA guided boat along Europe’s longest navigable underground river, an hour north of the city.
Valencia eats rice at lunchtime and argues about it all afternoon.
Paella is a lunch dish here, cooked flat and wide over vine wood, and nobody local orders it after four. Four ways to get at the city’s food, and what it costs to sit down at each.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Paella Cooking Class, Wine Tasting & Central Market in Valencia
Cook the rice yourselfMarket shopping, an open flame, and lunch you made.
Small plates, walkingFour or five bars round Ruzafa and the old town, one dish each.
Cellars and vermouthUtiel-Requena reds an hour inland, or a tasting behind the market.
Market morningsThe Mercat Central under its tiled dome, before the queue.
All 31 food and drink days →
Six Valencias, and the best day out in each.
A rice kitchen, a bike lane where a river used to run, Calatrava’s white ribs at the far end of it, a lagoon that feeds the city, a flamenco room off a back street and the water at the Malvarrosa end.
The days out more Valencia travellers book than any other.
Every Valencia tour we have reviewed →The aquarium, the flamenco rooms, the bikes and the boats, in the order travellers actually pick them.
1
Oceanogràfic Entry Ticket
Review of Valencia’s Oceanogràfic aquarium, with sharks, belugas, dolphins, penguins, practical timing tips, costs, and honest advice.
From · $44
Read our review →
2
Palosanto Flamenco Show Ticket
from $25
3
Catamaran Cruise with Sunset Option
from $17
4
Valencia Old Town Tour with Wine & Tapas in 11th Century Historic Monument
from $96
5
Oceanogràfic, Hemisfèric & Science Museum Combo
from $54
6
City Highlights Guided Bike Tour
from $26
7
Sunset or Daytime Catamaran Cruise with Drink
from $18
8
Old Town Tour, Wine & Tapas in an 11th c. Monument
from $94
The Turia flooded once, and Valencia moved the river.
After 1957 the water was diverted south and the empty bed was planted: nine kilometres of gardens, orange trees and bike lane running from the old town to the sea. It is why this is a cycling city, and why almost every good guided morning here has wheels under it.
- 1City Highlights Guided Bike Tourfrom $26
- 2Valencia Bike Tour from the City to the Beach, plus Bike Guy App!from $48
- 3Valencia Bike Tourfrom $44
An hour inland the province turns to gorges, springs and rice water.
Valencia is flat and green for twenty minutes, then it is limestone. Hanging footbridges over the Turia at Chulilla, thermal pools at Montanejos, a river running through caves at San José, and the lagoon in the other direction.
What a day out in Valencia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Valencia is cheap for a Mediterranean capital, and the cheap end is not the thin end.
Old-town walks, museum and monument entry, the lagoon boat, a bike for the day.
- 1Palosanto Flamenco Show Ticketfrom $25
- 2Catamaran Cruise with Sunset Optionfrom $17
- 3City Highlights Guided Bike Tourfrom $26
The standards: the aquarium, flamenco with dinner, catamarans, tuk-tuk loops, most cooking classes.
Full days inland, private guides, and the long lunches that turn into afternoons.
Three things Valencia has that nowhere else does.
Mediterranean cities all have an old quarter and a beach. A river turned into a park, a lagoon that invented a national dish, and a set of white concrete ribs at the end of both are harder to copy.
The Turia Gardens
The flood of 1957 put two metres of water through the city and killed dozens. The engineers’ answer was to send the river round the south instead, which left a dry bed running right through the middle. Franco wanted a motorway in it. Valencia wanted a garden, and got one: nine kilometres of pines, palms, orange trees, football pitches and a bike lane that never meets a car.
- 1Chulilla, Turia Canyon, Hanging bridges…★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 139 reviews
- 2Turia Gardens Private Segway Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 77 reviews
- 3Walking Tour of the Hanging Bridges of Canyon de Turia and Chulilla Village★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 22 reviews
The Albufera
Ten kilometres south of the city a freshwater lagoon sits behind a pine bar of sand, ringed by paddies that have been flooded and drained on the same calendar for centuries. This is where paella comes from: rabbit, snails and beans over a wood fire, cooked by farmers at midday. The flat-bottomed boats still go out at dusk, and the light on that water is the reason everybody photographs it.
- 1Albufera Day Trip with Boat Tour and Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 556 reviews
- 2The Original Albufera Tour: Barraca, Boat Ride & Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 281 reviews
- 3Albufera Jeep and Boat Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 253 reviews
The City of Arts and Sciences
Santiago Calatrava built it in the empty riverbed at the seaward end, and it looks like a whale skeleton left on a wet floor. An opera house, a planetarium under an eyelid that opens, a covered walkway of white ribs and Europe’s biggest aquarium under the shallow pools. Come at dusk, when the trencadís tiles go blue and the whole thing doubles in the water.
- 1Oceanogràfic Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 9,893 reviews
- 2Oceanogràfic, Hemisfèric & Science Museum Combo★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 2,959 reviews
- 3City of Arts and Science 3D Movie at Hemisfèric★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 455 reviews
Four Valencia bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be sorted over breakfast the same morning. These four run on timed slots, small rooms and a lunch hour that does not move.
- 01Oceanogràfic Entry TicketEntry is by timed slot and the tanks are the busiest thing in the city. Weekend and school-holiday windows go weeks ahead.
- 02Paella Cooking Class, Wine Tasting & Central Market in ValenciaThe kitchens seat a dozen at most and the class ends as lunch, so there is one useful sitting a day.
- 03Palosanto Flamenco Show TicketThe tablao rooms hold sixty or seventy people, closer to the boards than a theatre. The dinner seating fills first.
- 04Albufera Day Trip with Boat Tour and TransferThe boats everyone wants are the ones that reach the water at sunset, and that is one departure, not a timetable.
From June the afternoon belongs to the city, not to you.
July and August hit the mid-thirties with the sea holding the humidity in, and the old town shutters between two and five. Valencia’s answer is the same as its residents’: do the walking early, sleep through the worst of it, and start again at eight when the terraces fill and the flamenco rooms open.
By place — city, coast and inland
By kind of day — kitchen, saddle, deck or cave
Old town, riverbed, lagoon, and one day inland.
San José cavesThe newest Valencia tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Full Day Private Requena Wineries Premium Tastings
Read our review →
In Love with Valencia: A Self-Guided Tour of its Landmarks
Read our review →
VALENCIA ESSENZIALE + SITI PATRIMONIO UMANITÀ (ITALIANO)
Read our review →
