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Long over-shadowed by its big sisters - the tourist-savvy cities of Barcelona and Madrid - Valencia has shaken off its reputation as a run-down industrial port city and is stealing a slice of the action.
More than $1 billion has been poured into the city in recent years and now it has landed the America's Cup. Suddenly Valencia is on the map, its beaches fringing the Mediterranean cleaned up, grand new architectural wonders constructed and the Port of America's Cup playground built.
But a few footsteps down a back street, the old Valencia is easily found. Here Valencians gather to stroll in the plazas, shop, share tapas or a giant pan full of seafood paella with friends.
English isn't as common as in Madrid or Barcelona but, using a mixture of limited Spanish (with the help of a simple phrase book), sign language and English, it is easy to get by.
Ask your hotel staff or taxi driver for a tapas bar recommendation. They're a good place to have a meal if you don't want to wait until 9pm or later for the restaurants to open. And if your Spanish is non-existent you can just point at what you want to try from the platefuls of food lined up on display at the bar. A must is Casa Montana, a tavern in El Cabanyal near the port, which takes Spanish cuisine and wine seriously. It's been serving food for more than 100 years on the site and this goes to show that practice makes perfect.
We ate our way through succulent squid, rare roasted eye fillet, cod fish croquettes, slow-cooked fava beans in a beefy broth, garlic mash laced with tuna, fish and the dry cured ham jamon. All washed down with an excellent Spanish red wine and followed by a tasting plate of melt-in-the-mouth desserts.
Once the jetlag is under control and you're on Spanish time, there's no going past fresh seafood at one of the many restaurants lining Malvarrosa beach, a sweeping sandy beach from which sunbathers can watch the America's Cup yachts compete on the north course in the warm afternoons. Valencia is reasonably compact - 70 per cent of its 900,000 inhabitants live in apartment buildings - so getting around is never more than a 15-minute taxi ride.
One of the first local attractions a taxi driver, guide or local will point out with pride is the architectural masterpieces of Valencia-born architect Santiago Calatrava in creating the City of Arts and Sciences. This collection of beautifully designed curved and angular public buildings are the centrepiece in the wide, dried-out riverbed where the River Turia used to flow. After the river burst its banks in the disastrous flood of 1957, killing 400 people, it was diverted along a canal to the south of the city. Gradually 8 kilometres of river bed has been established as open space, outdoor sculpture parks, sports grounds, a zoo, playgrounds and the acclaimed City of Arts and Sciences.
Set among large pools of still water and fringed by wide boulevards, the City of Arts and Sciences boasts a science museum, a planetarium, an Imax cinema and the palace of the arts (the opera house), its curved roofs covered with gleaming white broken tiles and designed to look like the shape of a human eye. Nearby is an aquarium, designed by the late Felix Candela, which houses 1000 species of fish in 42,000 tonnes of water.
But by far the most charming part of Valencia is the old quarter with its star-shaped medieval layout. There are bus tours but the best way to see it is on foot, stopping here and there for a coffee or tapas in the afternoon. It is here that layers of history, of conquerors and occupiers, are evident in the architecture and remains. Founded in 138BC by the Romans, subsequent civilisations built on top of one another - Visigoths, Arabs, Catalans and French. Signs of the city's ancient past are everywhere, from the old stone bridges which cross the dried out riverbed to remains of the old city wall and one of its three 14th century gates, used in later years as a prison.
The entrance to Valencia Cathedral, built over 600 years with Roman temple foundations, is from the Placa de la Virgen where people watch the water fountain, drink coffee, walk. Inside the cathedral is spectacular and its ornate alter, its paintings and frescoes spanning several centuries, has been recently restored. You'll also find the Chapel of the Holy Grail. Some say the vase on display, which has been in the cathedral since the 14th century, was the vessel used by Christ during the Last Supper.
The walking tour is not complete without a visit to the Mercado food market, open every day from 7am to 3pm. Built between 1916 and 1928 in Modernist style, the market has been extensively restored. The mosaic floors have survived, as have the domed ceiling, beautiful stained glass and ceramic tiling depicting clusters of fruit. It was here that Prada held a party last month as part of its America's Cup hospitality.
NEED TO KNOW
Getting there
Emirates flies to Dubai and on to London or Paris three times daily from Auckland and daily from Christchurch. The economy return airfare (based on May departures from New Zealand) is $2772, business class is from $8651 and first class is from $11,551. From Paris or London, travellers can ask their travel agents to organise a commuter flight to Valencia or book directly on the internet.
