Valencia

Valencia is Spain's third largest city, set right on the Mediterranean about 350 km south of Barcelona. It was once the country's gateway to the sea, and its history reaches back to 138 BC, when it was founded as a Roman colony. Visigoths, Moors, El Cid and the Crown of Aragon all left their mark, and in the 15th and 16th centuries it was a major commercial and financial center. Modernisme architecture, the Catalan take on Art Nouveau, shows in many facades, the railway station and the Central Market.

After the devastating flood of 1957 the river Turia was diverted around the city, and the dry riverbed became the Jardin del Turia, a huge park with sports and leisure facilities. Next to it stands the City of Arts and Sciences by Valencia-born architect Santiago Calatrava, with an opera house and performing arts center, a science museum and Europe's largest aquarium. Beyond the cathedral and the silk exchange, this futuristic quarter has made the city ever more popular with visitors. You can also relax on the city beaches, eat paella in the dish's birthplace, or come in March for the Falles, a festival honoring Saint Joseph with fireworks, processions and giant papier-mâché and wood figures that are ceremonially burned at the end.