The best beaches in Valencia

Cabanyal, Malvarrosa, Patacona & La Devesa

Valencia is the perfect destination to live all that a millenary and changing city has to offer you, without giving up a beach vacation

Have you chosen Valencia because this year you wanted to do city tourism, without giving up your break facing the sea? Well, you’re in luck! Valencia’s beaches will surprise you!

The Cabanyal beach (Las Arenas)

This urban beach is located right next to “La Marina de València”, just five kilometres from the Town Hall Square and is very well communicated. There was formerly a private beach within it, but now it is public for the enjoyment of the Valencians and tourists.

It has a length of about 1,200 metres and an average width of 135 metres. So, despite being the most frequented, you will have no problem spreading your towel on its fine golden sand. In addition, if you prefer to lay under a beach umbrella or hammock, it also has this service. And for food or drink, do not worry! Known by the Valencians as the “Las Arenas” beach, it has a fantastic and traditional restaurant area with terraces that overlook the port and the northern part of the “Costa del Azahar”.

The Malvarrosa beach

A source of inspiration for numerous artists like the painter Joaquin Sorolla or the writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the “Malvarrosa” beach is another urban beach treat for the visitor. In a way, it is still the extension to the north of “Las Arenas” beach, with the new neighbourhood’s special characteristics and range of the most widespread restoration.

If you like to do sports: play volleyball, soccer, shovels, or enjoy watching your kids climbing up fun ropes, come in at dusk and feel the sand’s coolness on your feet. Even during the day, the width of the beach will also allow you to practice your hobbies without disturbing or being disturbed by anyone.

And what to say about running on the shore, walking or biking along the promenade by the breeze! You have to experience it!

La Patacona beach

If you continue along the Malvarrosa beach to where the sand takes you, without hardly realising it you will have reached Alboraya, the Valencia’s bordering town that houses “La Patacona”. A beach of something more than a kilometre, also open and wide, in which it will not be difficult to contemplate mounted horseback strollers first thing in the morning.

The delight of this beach are the old houses facing the sea converted into restaurants that have been decorated with an exceptional taste. To move about there to eat, dine or have coffee, in one of the premises with outdoor and indoor terraces, will be a great discovery.

El Saler and La Garrofera beaches

To the south of Valencia, but within its municipal limits, is the “Devesa de La Albufera”. It is an unrivalled spot for dunes, fauna and vegetation of 10 kilometres in length and approximately one kilometre wide. There are six waymarked itineraries in it, differentiated by themes and colours, which together represent more than eight kilometres to journey.

Most impressive: its location between the Mediterranean to the East and the rice paddies and lagoon of “La Albufera” to the West. To combine a walk on this arm of paradisiacal land with a good dip in the beaches of “El Saler” or “La Garrofera” and a sunset in front of “La Albufera” will, as a result, be very energetic and romantic.

Valencia’s Marine

"La Marina de València" cannot be understood without the city’s history or the contribution of its people. From the sailors and fishermen from the maritime towns who have accompanied it since the existence of a small jetty raised nearly a millennium ago. From the farmers and businessmen promoting an exporting Valencia, whose time of splendour would be reflected in the modernist buildings that enclose it today. Of those who bet on the Valencian nautical industry until this portion of the port was fi with moorings. From the innkeepers who offer the best products from our land and our Mediterranean in a unique environment. Ultimately, from all the Valencians who welcome the traveller in a hospitable way.

It is located just 20 minutes away from the city centre by bus, metro or bicycle, and 15 minutes by car. In the Valencia’s marine the tourist will discover a sea of choices: concerts, exhibitions, play areas for children, restaurant business offerings, a beach club and nautical activities. In it you can walk, run or bike contemplating the old and modern buildings, like the emblematic “Veles e Vents”. You will step on the Formula 1 track circuit and admire the boats at a dock for megayachts, whose stimulus was due to the celebration of the 32nd America’s Cup at the end of the last decade.

“La Marina de València” is, therefore, a place where the traveller can enjoy a public space that is increasingly open to Valencians, the Mediterranean and the world. The Levantine horizon of the city merges with its beaches, under the key principle of respect for the environment.

Nautical epicentre

The visitor will find about 40 businesses for nautical services and activities in the Valencia’s marine, which include mechanics, painting, boat and jet ski repairs, rental and sales, and a long etcetera of complementary services. Around this industry, the focus on specialised professional training in this area is being developed.

Business ecosystem

Can you imagine being able to start up your business in an idyllic place? It is possible in the Valencia’s marine. With more than one million square metres, the largest marina in Europe also has a space where creativity and innovation are valued. It is committed to training, start-ups’ support, and sustainable enterprises development is stimulated.

Under the name of “Marina de Empresas” three institutions are positioned: Edem, the training school for entrepreneurs and managers plus the entrepreneurs and engineers’ university; the companies accelerator, Lanzadera; and Angels, the investment company that bases its decisions on the Total Quality Model.

Innsomnia is another wager on innovation based in this marine. It is the first business incubator specialised in Fintech in Spain.

St. Nicholas Church, "Valencia's Sistine Chapel"

When the restorer of the Sistine Chapel, Gianluigi Colalucci, contemplated the church of ‘San Nicolás’ in 2014 he could only exclaim: “Long live the Valencian Sistine Chapel!”

The St. Nicholas Church in Valencia is a 13th-century Gothic church located in the historical centre where Valencia was founded. The city was constituted by the Romans in the year 138 of our era.

Established as a parish in the place where a mosque previously existed, the church of ‘San Nicolás’ stands out for being one of the first 12 Catholic temples, subsequent to the conquest of King Jaime I.

During the fifteenth century, when Alfonso de Borja, rector of ‘San Nicolás’ and future Pope Calixto III, would encourage the enlargement of the apse and the feet of the parish to give it the structure and size maintained nowadays. However, the artistic wonder – that leaves parishioners and tourists who visit it speechless – would take place a few centuries later.

Baroque was imposed on Western culture at the end of the seventeenth century and every parish that appreciated itself had to follow that style. The paintings of St. Nicholas are commissioned by the fashionable artist of the time, Cordovan Antonio Palomino, who is committed to make designs of everything that was going to be painted, as well as to give it theological meaning. Due to Palomino’s overwork, the materialisation of such a work of art would be performed by his disciple, the Valencian Dionís Vidal. Self-portraits of both of them are on the right of the rosette, whose light is filtered reflecting a magical polychrome drawing inside the church. Palomino wears black, while Vidal, in the background, seems to show himself with the attitude of one who seeks the approval of his teacher.

The result: almost 2,000 square metres of stunning fresco painting, between the walls and the whole vault. The paintings of the central vault are divided into six lunettes on each side, North and South, in which the lives of ‘San Pedro Mártir’ and ‘San Nicolás’ are respectively represented. Everything in them is loaded with symbolism and elegance.

Of its architecture we highlight the Main Altar, it is also of Baroque style although more ornate. It was designed by Juan Bautista Pérez Castiel, one of the Cathedral of Valencia’s architects. In the Greater Altar, both Catholic saints are even in their Glory, upon reaching the end of their earthly life.

Return the colour to the darkened

The original paintings in the church of ‘San Nicolás’ were hidden by the passage of the years and, specifically, smoked by centuries of lit candles in honour of the diverse saints and images of the Virgin that lodges the parish.

After several previous restoration attempts, the Valencian institution “Fundación Hortensia Herrero”, at the beginning of this decade, made a commitment to return the original luminosity and colour to this century-old temple.

The restoration works were implemented between 2013 and 2016, in coordination with the Valencian Archbishopric and the specialists at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). Thanks to the use of innovative and complex techniques, they managed to recuperate the church of St. Nicholas’ artistic greatness. It also includes the architectural rehabilitation directed by Carlos Campos.

Once this first intervention was finished, the UPV remains in charge of pre-emptive conservation, through the use of sophisticated systems that even measure the environment’s humidity. Scaffolding and closed doors, that travellers can find these days in the facades and in the interior of the building, already correspond to a new stage of this church’s restoration which still holds many treasures to unveil.

The origin of Santa Claus

Perhaps because St. Nicholas is considered one of the Catholic saints protecting children, the life and worship of St. Peter the Martyr is relegated by the devotion that the Valencians profess to ‘San Nicolás’.

But the Valencians are not the only ones who pay homage to St. Nicholas. In this increasingly global world, thanks to which Valencia receives the visit of numerous foreigners, it is sometimes these same guests who better know the life of St. Nicholas, which Palomino and Vidal left expressed in their designs and paintings.

Saint Nicolas is the personality who distributes toys and happiness to many children of the world every year. In the present time, he comes to compete with the prominence of the Wise Men during the Spanish Christmases. As it is called and imagined in a part of the north of Europe, Santa Claus can be recognized in the second of the lunettes dedicated to this saint.

Other images such as that of St. Nicholas resurrecting three children boiled by an innkeeper, the high number of angels dispersed around different places of the church or the little ones placed at the feet of the saints, in the High Altar, attest to the importance given to the coming generations in this church.

The Ruzafa district

Ruzafa neighbourhood, reconverted into a cool area of Valencia, is delimited by the old and vanished gardens which gave it its name and the future green lung of the city

According to the chroniclers, the district of Ruzafa (“Russafa”) owes its name to the recreational estate that the peaceful prince Abd Allaah al-Balansí (“the Valencian”) authorised to be built to the south of fortified Valencia. In this way, al-Balansí sought to replicate the residence that his father (the emir Abderramán I) had founded in Cordova, in memory of the orchard also raised in Syria by his predecessor.

More than a millennium would have to pass until, in 1877, the then populous and active suburb was officially integrated into the Valencian capital. Since then, many years and stories have taken place in its streets, but it was only a little over a decade ago when the affordable prices of its homes rebounded. Several generations of young people began to settle in the neighbourhood, succeeding an ageing population and ending the famous “ pound shop” and bad reputation that the area had acquired.

This push would make Ruzafa what it is now: a modern district of Valencia, which is very attractive both for its restored facades and its powerful activity.

To know Ruzafa well, we propose you go deep into its colourful market in the morning. About 5,000 square metres and 160 posts feed and entertain Ruzafa’s residents. Its high quality products are required by the new neighbourhood’s inhabitants and by the surrounding families who shop in this place. In addition, the street vendors’ stalls that move across Valencia make it even more lively every Monday.

Animated during the day


In the market you can have coffee or snack something between meals. But the summer aperitif will be more pleasing in any of the terraces that populate the neighbourhood’s epicentre: the recommended San Valero’s church square and its adjoining streets. You can even stop there to eat before or after wandering around Ruzafa.

It is worth walking through the more and less frequented streets to find shops with tradition and recently created ones that, maybe you did not expect to visit in Valencia until now. Decoration, fashion, design, art galleries, second-hand bookstores or a shop that sells honey produced in-house, are just some of the examples of the wide commercial offer that will come your way.

Alive at night

The long summer days in Valencia complement each other perfectly with Ruzafa’s nightlife. The terraces and the cultural offerings in the neighbourhood’s cafes, to which Ubik Café owes much, are ideal for a well-deserved evening’s relaxation. However, its very assorted gastronomy will help you to recover strength as it will provide you with the necessary calories to close the night dancing in one of its bars and nightclubs or listening to music at Café Mercedes Jazz.

A green lung in project

The park at Manuel Granero square is the only green space in the current Ruzafa neighbourhood. However, the Parque Central project is getting closer and closer. It will cover the North and Sorolla stations’ tracks. The call to be the new lung of Valencia, will rejuvenate Ruzafa giving it back its former natural freshness.

If after your stay you are happy to have known this neighbourhood, imagine it in the future!

La Lonja: one of Valencia’s emblematic buildings

Since the 15th century, the striking monument of La Lonja houses a trade based on the good faith of its merchants

La Lonja is one of Valencia’s emblematic buildings. Its imposing stone walls carry within it the history of a trade based on its merchants’ good faith, that even many Valencians are unaware of and that we will speak about shortly. Before, a brief note about this architectural combination, regarding an example of European Gothic art.

Declared National Historical-Artistic Monument in 1931 and World Heritage of Humanity in 1996, “La Lonja de Valencia”, also known as the “Lonja de los Mercaderes” (Merchants’ Market) or the “Lonja de la Seda” (Silk Market), consists of three sections. From Mercado square, from right to left, the Lonja as such -from the Italian “loggia”- and the “Torre central” (Central Tower) can be seen. The third element is known as the “Pabellón del Consulado”.

From its practically flat facades, the magnificent work of the stonemasons stands out. It is laden with medieval symbolism such as the anthropomorphic or zoomorphic gargoyles, or the 40 medallions on the frieze of the facades that overlook the garden, Cordellats street and Mercado square, where kings like the then reigning Charles I or their ancestors the Catholic Kings were sculpted along gods from Greek mythology.

From its interior, the “Salón de Contratación” or “Columnario” especially impresses. It is a spacious and high rectangular hall, divided into three longitudinal naves, with eight helical columns that support a 17.40 meters high vault and 16 other columns attached to the walls. The first Mercantile Contracting Center of Valencia was established in this Hall. Equivalent to the “Bourse de Commerce” in Paris or the New York Produce Exchange.

La Lonja Consulate

In the thirteenth century, with only one wooden quay, Valencia was already a center for active maritime traffic linked to commerce. Proof of this is that in 1283, King Pedro III “El Grande” granted the city the royal privilege which established the “Consulado del Mar” (the Sea Consulate), a court of commerce based on those of the Italian republics of the time which until the eighteenth century compiled and executed the mercantile and marine customs.

The inheritor of this institution is the current “Consulado de La Lonja”, whose primary objective is to coordinate the interests of the different agricultural sectors, of enormous relevance to the Valencian economy, while maintaining relations between traders, industrialists and commercial agents.

Among its highlighted services is the publication of the price of about 150 products listed in “La Lonja de Valencia”, including pig livestock, eggs, rice, cereals, leguminosae, flours, bran, carob pods, legumes, nuts, potatoes, onions and citrus fruits, and whose bulletin consists of 24 varieties.

As a contracting center, thanks to the guarantee offered by its contracts, it is also worth noting the importance of other products such as wines or green coffee and, as an exception of the agricultural sector, the philately and the numismatics of which the tourist can enjoy Sundays and holidays. But, undoubtedly, the most characteristic element of La Lonja Consulate is the use of Arbitration in Equity to resolve the possible disagreements in hiring, based on trade in good faith.

In the Hall of Contracts, the tables where negotiations would take place were changed by the new technologies a few decades ago, but guild meetings, assemblies and other events continue to be held in the Consulate Pavilion. Do not be surprised, therefore, to see these businessmen during your visit to “La Lonja”.

The Street of the Baskets

To discover a city is to also know its traditions, at the time of taking a memento with us there is nothing better than going for autochthonous art. The Valencian Community is very rich in culture and art: ceramics, silk, gold and silversmithing and the art of wickerwork and basketry. In the heart of the city we find Músico Peydro Street, commonly known as “street of the Baskets”, since the 40s and 50s the artisans located their workshops there.

This tradition comes from the Marina Alta, villages like Gata de Gorgos and Pedreguer (Alicante), where the wickerwork and basketry craft is handmade with punch, penknife, hammer and scissors. The wicker is cultivated, selected, treated and dried; and later braided one by one to until the desired object is achieved: baskets, shoes (the typical “espardenya”) and hats also made from other vegetable fi (hemp, esparto, wicker, palm, etc).

New designers are currently adding to these traditional aesthetic ideas: like Pilar Tomás and Alicia Beltrán who use this base to let their imagination fly and off up explosions of colour in each item. We will fi various of these handmade designs in Valencia at the end of the Calle de la Cestas, in the Plaza de la Merced, in a little space dedicated to art called “Diseños de Autor”.

Text by: Marian Romero, journalist and art director.
Photos: Christopher Cognonato.
Basketry and footwear Pilar Tomás, dressed by Ángeles Esparza. Thanks to Beatriz Aspas, Court of Honor of the "Fallera Mayor" of Valencia 2017
HeyValencia:https://www.heyvalencia.com/la-strada-delle-ceste/?lang=en

Blasco Ibáñez in Hollywood

The Valencian Vicente Blasco produced two films, directed one, wrote a dozen original scripts and adapted two of his novels

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s life is a cinematographic script,an action movie. The boy who was born in the plaza del Mercado (Market Square) of Valencia, son of Aragonese emigres, opens the eyes when the 1868revolution dawns and its rattle is composed of the bullets from the federal uprising in 1869, the cantonal in 1873, and the 1874 coup d’etat. He soon became interested in literature, and more than studying, he wanted to read, read everything, but especially the Romantics, Dumas, Dickens, Poe, Hugo. And soon, to write. He made progress in his studies, but always preferred the teachers of life over those of the university. Constantí Llombart and his friends, republican writers who cultivate literature in Valencian, because they want to build a popular vehicle for the mobilisation and resurrection of the “living dead” (“morta-viva”), from Valencian, they become their greatest formative influence.

The cinema arrived for him in its twilight stage. He was already everything, hehad already done everything: he had edited and directed newspapers, written pamphlets and novels, led political parties and mass movements,founded colonies, given conferences and rallies. He said that a conversation with Gabriele D’Annunzio made him enthusiastic about the Lumière brothers’ invention. A man of action as he was, passion soon summoned his talent. Cinema, on the other hand, had already visited him: in 1914, the cinematographic version of “Entre naranjos” (Between orange trees) was released and shortly after that “La Barraca” (The hut), with the title “El tonto de la huerta” (The orchard’s fool).

During the Great War, Blasco, an allied sympathiser to the hilt, and as a good admirer of the Third French Republic, conceived the idea of overturning “Los cuatro jinetes del apocalipsis” (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) to the cinema. It was made with French money and was directed by André Heuzé. The tape has been lost.

He soon teamed up with Max André and, in that year of 1916, founded a film company, whose first fruit was “Sangre y arena”/“Arènes sanglantes” (Blood and sand). Directed by Blasco himself, the tape was the first of Premetheus Films, the film transcription of the Prometeo Publishing House, that Blasco, his brother-in-law Francisco Sempere and his friend Fernando Llorca, had created in 1914.

The company went bankrupt, but not Vicente Blasco’s faith in artistic media and expression. When the American film studios saw “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,”they quickly summoned his screenwriter. At that time, he states: “Cinema is as important to me as literature”. His bet is decisive.

Hollywood wanted to adapt his works. In 1919, he signed with Metro Pictures for the adaptation of “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and in 1921 of “Los enemigos de la mujer” (The enemies of the woman). In 1922,he gives the rights of “Blood and sand” to Famous Players and then those of “La maja desnuda” (Nude Maja) to International Film.He sold his first original screenplay in 1923 to Famous Players with the title of “Andalusian Love”. That same year he signed with the Metro for the transfer of rights of “Los muertos mandan” (The dead rule); the following year he will yield the ones of “Mare Nostrum”.

Blasco is the reason why Metro-Goldwin-Mayer was incorporated, since his films produced great benefits, of which he participated, and so did his producers. The great actors and actresses, Valentino, Mae Murray, Alice Terry, Greta Garbo, embodied the roles that Blasco created.

But the biggest movie, that of his life, is still to be shot.

Text by: Francesc A. Martínez Gallego (UV) and Antoni Laguna Platero (UCLM).
HeyValencia: https://www.heyvalencia.com/vicente-blasco-ibanez-la-conquista-hollywood/?lang=en