As I promised, here comes the second part of our first vacation we took together with my husband.
After spending two days in PortAventura theme park, we took a train to Valencia.
Have you ever heard of Valencia? If not, maybe you know paella? Paella is originated from there.
Valencia is the third largest city in Spain and the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia. After spending three days there, I understand why it’s one of the most popular tourist destinations in Spain. I really love the historic city center with all those beautiful old buildings, parks with lemon and orange trees smelling so great. Almost every house has a great history and amazing architectural details to investigate.
My husband has a friend living in Valencia, and that friend loves history. So you can imagine how happy he was for the possibility to share his knowledge with us. And we were really pleased to have a private guide during our city tour.
As I told before, there a lot of amazing buildings, and I won’t show you all the photos I took – it would take ages, but I will share with you some of my favorites.
One of my favorite buildings was a Ceramics Museum located in Palacio de Marques de Dos Aguas. The facade was designed in 1740 by Ignacio Vergara, but over the years, the building has gone through many changes and nowadays, it’s a mix of baroque and rococo architecture.
Ceramics Museum in Valencia
Another one I really liked was the Central Market building. It is constructed in the Spanish Modernism style and the building dates back to early twentieth century. This market is huge, gorgeous and bustling with life!
Central Market building in Valencia
We chose Valencia as our destination because we were really interested in visiting The City of Arts and Sciences. Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias is a huge cultural and architectural complex designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela. The construction began in 1996 and finished in 2005.
The complex is impressive and consists of seven buildings – Imax Cinema (with planetarium and serum), an interactive museum of science, a landscaped walk with a park, an open-air oceanography park, an opera house, a suspension bridge and a covered plaza.
Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias
We chose to visit the museum of science and oceanography park. We were really disappointed with the museum. It’s a huge building but so few expositions and things to do – boring! The Marvel Comics and DNA expositions were the only things we enjoyed. Even our local science museum has more interactive representations, and it’s way smaller than this one.
An open-air oceanography park was a much better experience. It is the largest aquarium in Europe and has around 500 different species living there including beluga whale. If I’m not wrong, the first beluga calf born in captivity in Europe was born in Valencia. I love aquariums and have visited quite a few and I have to say, that aquarium in Berlin Zoo among with Loro Parque aquarium in Tenerife are is still my favorite ones.
At oceanographic park
Even if the science museum was a disappointment, we had a really great time in Valencia! If you visit Spain, you should visit this beautiful city too!
Such beautiful photos! I have been to Madrid and Barcelona, but never Valencia. I LOVE Spain and hope to get there again. What a beautiful center that IMAX theater is in. Thanks for sharing your great pics!
Wot that museum is beautiful!! My favorite places to go is aquariums, I love the marine life and all the creatures it contains!!! So jealous. Share more pics! lol
Love the pics! My parents used to live in Spain and I love the old buildings.
WOW how beautiful ! amazing i love the buildings ,beautiful architecture
very beautiful photos! I would love to visit there!
The photos are absolutely gorgeous, and I think it’s awesome how you made the most of your time there and took in so many different attractions. Sorry the science museum was a bit of a bust, but the rest of your experiences look like they were awesome!
I’ve never been to Spain but would love to go someday. Thanks for the great pictures too.
WOW. Fully convinced me to go there. Amazing pics, Ave!
I love the pic of that water its amazing.. I would love to visit also.. is stunning
It looks so pretty over there. I have never been out of the country. I don’t think I will be able to afford to anytime soon either. I imagine travelling internationally is expensive.
I wouldn’t miss Valencia if I were to visit Spain. I love the Central Market!
WHAT an AWESOME trip.. I’m sooo soo jealous… Loved your pictures, they totally made me feel like I was there with you…
What an awesome vacation!! I would love to take that trip!!!
Wow, What beautiful pictures! You are so lucky to have visited such a gorgeous place!
Great pictures. I really love the look of the buildings!
No I’ve never heard of it. It looks fabulous.
What a beautiful place. I loved your photos
That architecture is simply gorgeous! Especially that ceramics museum! Love it!
Love the pictures!
Oh how fun it would be to have a lemon or orange tree!
Absolutely gorgeous! Would LOVE to go there!
Oh my! This makes me want to go visit. The images are so enticing!
We’ve been a Spanish colony for more than 300 years and they influenced us greatly not only with our beliefs, but also with the dishes. We have arroz de valenciana and paella, two of the most favorite cuisine during fiesta. Thanks for showing us some of your beautiful photos of Valencia, your photos made me felt nostalgic and happy.
What wonderful imagery. I wish I had the opportunity to visit this magnificent city
I have always wanted to visit Valencia. I have a friend who lived there for a while, and he absolutely love it.
Very good post with excellent pictures. I love such blog posts. They give such a pleasant feeling.
I love the pictures ,just makes me want to book a tickets right now
would love to visit one day…
Great pictures! I would love to visit these places one day. Thanks for sharing.