The next city on our list was Valencia (or València in Valencian). From our initial online research, this city was high on my list. Let’s see how it fared.

As a reminder or the criteria we were using to evaluate the neighborhoods:

  • Walkability: we want to be able to ditch cars entirely and utilize walking and public transportation
  • Café Life: a variety of cafés and restaurants to be able to dine at, preferably al fresco when the weather allowed
  • European Charm: several story buildings (but not too many stories), with interesting architectural details, balconies (usually tiny), and painted in bright colors
  • Green Space and Public Life: parks, plazas, promenades, and other places to sit, read, observe, and socialize
  • Lots of small stores where daily shopping could occur
  • Enough people on the streets for a vibrant feeling, but not so much that it felt crowded
  • Lack of nightclubs or other facilities where loud music would be heard late into the night.
  • Proximity of stores that support our hobbies (in our case, knitting, tabletop gaming, and art)
  • A feeling of safety and comfort for a gay couple in our later years
  • Places that supported a sense of culture and lifelong learning

We took a regional train from Barcelona to Valencia — one that topped out at 200 km/h, which, from this Californian’s perspective, is still impressively fast. Valencia’s main station, the Nord Estación, is a delightful building that was undergoing renovation during our visit. Since our hotel in Sant Francesc was just a short walk away, we arrived on foot feeling fairly pleased with ourselves — until we discovered the oddly shaped lobby, which made hauling all our luggage in a single trip something of a puzzle. The staff at the front desk were warm and welcoming, and our room came with a balcony overlooking the pedestrian mall below, which my husband happily claimed as his own.

The neighborhood itself is quite upscale, centered around the city hall and the beautiful plaza fronting it. High-end boutiques line the streets — not quite on the level of Barcelona’s Passeig de Gràcia, but close — and tourists were a noticeable presence even in May. It never felt truly crowded, though that’s likely a function of visiting in the shoulder season rather than the height of summer. Charming as the area is, I suspect we’d grow weary of the tourist foot traffic over time; if it’s already this busy in mid-spring, I can only imagine what July must look like.

We did explore a bit of Sant Francesc during our first day there, walking around the city hall plaza and finding a candy store where we indulged our sweet tooths. Dinner was at a pizza place close to the hotel. We followed it up, as we often do, with gelato.

There were nine neighborhoods I wanted to visit during the week we were in Valencia, several of them close enough together to make it possible to visit more than one a day.

Russafa (or Ruzafa in Valencian)

A very short walk from our hotel, this neighborhood is reportedly one of the centers of nightlife in the city. The center of the neighborhood, according to the map, is a mix-mashed bunch of small streets meeting at strange angles. But this is where most of the restaurants, clubs, and shops are located. The outer areas of the neighborhood were more grid-like and open.

It was a fairly busy neighborhood when we visited during the daytime. We spent most of the time in the central area of the neighborhood, and it was busy. Not surprising since it was Saturday. We did have trouble finding a cafe for breakfast, but eventually found one on a major street on the edge of the neighborhood just south of the Ciudad Vella.

After breakfast, we tried to find a knitting store my husband had located. Unfortunately, while the listing of open hours indicated it should have been open that day, it was not. Such is things with online information in Spain; it’s not a priority to keep it up to date. We then visited the Mercat de Ruzafa, and found it similar to the mercats we had seen in Barcelona. Plenty of meat, fruits and veg, cheeses, and other products common in the central markets of Spain.

We did wander around the neighborhood, finding more restaurants and bars, but not as many of the small convenience stores that seemed so common in Barcelona. (This would be a trend throughout the city, a striking difference between Barcelona and Valencia.) As I mentioned, the streets in the center of the neighborhood were narrow, one lane one-way streets that met at odd angles. It would take me some time to learn to navigate the area.

We took our afternoon pause in the median park between the lanes of Carrer de les Filipines. Nearby was Parc Central. My husband was interested in exploring that, but I was in need of rest, so I let him go off whilst I read a book. He was gone longer than I expected, but I had not expected the park to be as big as it was. When we return, I’ll have to explore it as well.

For lunch we found a place that advertised a plethora of chicken sandwiches. The food was good, but there were a number of smokers around us on the outside dining area, which made it less enjoyable. After lunch we walked back to the hotel to rest up before dinner.

I had seen a burger place called the Black Turtle, with an English menu, during our stroll around the area, so we returned there for dinner. I was still feeling full from lunch so I had an interesting interpretation of a Caesar Salad while my husband had some kind of cheeseburger. My husband was reminded of why I avoid Pepsi products in Spain (and Europe in general): they contain artificial sweeteners, even the sugar-filled drinks. I don’t understand why. We followed dinner up by visiting one of the oldest gelaterias in Valencia (supposedly) where my husband got some chocolate with black cherry gelato. My stomach was still protesting, so I chose not to get anything.

Ruzafa is supposedly the center of nightlife in the city and kind of the center of gay life. We weren’t fond of the central region of it, with its cramped and irregular streets, but the outer areas were nice enough. There were a LOT of beautiful buildings with great architectural details. When we visited in the evening, some intersections where restaurants and bars were clustered were rather loud on a Saturday. So Ruzafa would end up in the middle of the list.

Rest Day: City of Arts and Sciences & Turia Gardens

Since we figured many stores in the neighborhoods would be closed on Sunday, we took this day to do our one tourist thing for the trip: visit the City of Arts and Sciences. We took a tram from a stop near our hotel, which was super convenient.

OMG, this place is amazing. I can see why so many TV shows and movies use it as a futuristic filming location. We did not go in any of the buildings (well, we strolled through part of the open air arboretum), but when we come back, I plan to. There’s a world-class aquarium, a hands-on science museum, an IMAX planetarium, an opera house which also hosts contemporary concerts, and more. Its gigantic!

After walking around the “City” we wandered into the adjacent Turia Gardens, one of the “Green Lungs” of Valencia. It is a 8.5 km long park that runs along the old river bed of the Turia River (which has been re-routed elsewhere). It was built after a particularly disastrous flood in 1957. It wraps around the Ciudad Vella (the old city), is crossed by several bridges, and each segment was designed by a different urban planners and designers, each with its own attractions and amenities. It’s really quite a wonder. There are walking/running and biking lanes the length of the park, lots of picnic areas, sculptures, fountains, and arbors. We didn’t walk the entire length, but we did find a nice place to sit and do our usual afternoon knit&read.

After our rest, we walked back towards the Tram but spotted a shopping mall, and realized we were crazy hungry. We wound up getting sandwiches at a Subway (slightly different sandwiches and dressings than the US version), which were pleasant enough. We didn’t explore the mall much, since all the walking in the park had wiped us out. Dinner was at a nearby Italian place where we started with a provolone fondue and I had a caramelized pineapple and ham pizza, and my husband had some gorgonzola risotto. We were stupidly stuffed after that.

Gran Via/Cánovas and Pla del Remei

We took the Tram to Gran Via the next day, getting three day passes to all of Velencia’s public transportation options. It was quite a bargain.

Gran Via, also known to locals as Cánovas, was quite nice, and is probably top of our list. Just a basic residential neighborhood with larger, though pricier, apartments. Lots of tree-lined streets, quaint architectural details, shops and restaurants. My husband enjoyed the chamfered corners of the blocks which allowed for interesting intersections, some of which were equipped with parklets. We walked the length of the neighborhood and wound up in Turia Gardens, where we shaded bench to knit and read. We then headed back into the neighborhood, along a different street, to find lunch.

We also visited Pla del Remei in that excursion. It’s the more upscale version of Cánovas, with an appropriately higher price tag, but we both loved it. Many beautiful buildings, lots of upscale shops, an El Corte Ingles (the major department store of Spain), and a metro stop in the middle. Along the way we discovered the Mercado Colón, and explored it. It was very different from the other mercats we’ve visited, much more restaurant and bar-oriented, but there was a carniceria on the lower level. We used the Metro to get back to the hotel.

For dinner we found a “food truck” restaurant in Gran Via that served grastonomic abominations. But they were tasty enough. We then walked up to the area we had been told was where nightlife was located, between Gran Via and El Pla del Remei, the Plaça de Canovas Castillon. It was nice, but apparently Mondays are almost as dead as Sundays, so it wasn’t really hopping.

Ciutat Vella & Extramurs Part 1

We visited El Botànic, El Carme, El Mercat, and a bit of El Pilar all in one day. They are smaller neighborhoods, El Botànic being part of Extramurs (“outside the walls”) and the other three being part of the old city (Ciutat Vella).

El Botànic didn’t really thrill us. The only real green space was in the Jardi Botànic, which cost money to enter. While the buildings had European charm, the sidewalks were narrower, making the neighborhood feel cramped. The lack of trees along the streets made them feel more exposed to the sun and thus warmer. The city’s most well known “Bear bar,” Bubu, is in this neighborhood but we didn’t visit it since the street it was on was under construction. There also weren’t as many stores and restaurants in this neighborhood, which made it difficult for us to see ourselves living there.

After being disappointed with El Botànic, we decided to wander into Ciutat Vella and wound up in El Carme. My research had informed me that El Carme is often considered one of the gay neighborhoods in Valencia, but I didn’t really see it. Apparently, at one point, it had a history as a center of LGBTQ+ nightlife and alternative culture, but that has now moved to neighborhoods like Ruzafa. What El Carme did have was lots of narrow streets meeting at odd angles, a LOT fewer cars, broad sidewalks, and it was VERY touristy. We did find an open yarn store, which we visited, where the shopkeepers easily switched between Spanish and really good English. We also toured a tiny little mercat there that was mostly restaurants but did not feel particularly lively. After that we walked through El Mercat, home to the biggest Mercat in Valencia, which was closed by the time we got there, and walked through a part of El Pilar on our way back to our hotel (stopping for more candy along the way).

We didn’t care for any of these neighborhoods much. The fact that there was very little public transportation available in that part of the city really knocked those areas off our list.

Extramurs Part 2: Arrancapins and La Petxina

Arrancapins and La Petxina were both similar in nature to Cánovas, but with a more working-class price tag. Primarily residential with some big schools and medical districts. One of the big gaming stores I had found in my research was in Arrancapins, though it was closed for “arrangements” when we stopped by. Petxina is also adjacent to the northern end of Turia Garden.

They are both adjacent to one of the Metro lines, so we took that from our hotel to the edge of Arrancapins and wandered around for a while. Many of the streets were tree-lined, some of the corners had benches to rest on, and there were a couple of streets that had been converted to pedestrian malls. There were plenty of restaurants around, and they seemed more geared towards Spaniards than tourists, unlike the previous neighborhoods we visited. We found one of those pedestrian malls for our knitting and reading time.

After lunch, we walked northward into La Petxina, which continued the charm of Arrancapins. We walked all of the way up to Turia Garden where some sports facilities filled the width of the park. One of them had a banner advertising the upcoming Gay Games. Having already had our sitting break, and having walked quite a bit, we didn’t explore that part of the park and opted instead to head to the Metro station so we could return to the Hotel.

We returned for dinner, and wound up at a place claiming to be “Tex-Mex”. It wasn’t really. But we did find food we were interested in eating, so that’s fine. After dinner we wandered around the neighborhood a bit more to see if there were any nighttime red flags. There weren’t, really, at least not in the areas we saw.

This region is probably number two on our Valencian neighborhood list.

El Pla del Real

Lastly, we visited El Pla del Real (primarily Expocisó and Mestalla). This seemed an odd mix of upscale and working-class. There’s a huge football stadium in the middle of it, and a bunch of buildings that looked like 70s-era public housing, built during the end of Franco’s reign. There were parts of it we liked and parts that felt uncomfortable (though not as much as El Raval in Barcelona). There was a nice part where we did our usual knitting and reading. We did get a few odd looks since we were sitting near a children’s play area without any children being around. As we were wrapping up our visit we did find an amazing Mexican fast-food restaurant there, so not all bad. But the area did not feel like somewhere we’d want to live, so we chose not to return for the nighttime check.

Conclusions

Comparing Valencia to Barcelona, there are pros and cons for each. We found L’Eixample in Barcelona to be eminently more walkable and comfortable, but apartment rental prices are much higher, and available units were few and far between. On the other hand, Valencia has a booming rental market in the areas we’d consider living in, lots of available apartments at reasonable prices. Taxes would effectively be higher in Barcelona than Valencia, but not by a huge amount. While Barcelona has all the Gaudi stuff, Valencia has Turia Park, the City of Arts and Science, an amazing zoo, and one of the most amazing central markets in the region. I could see us living in either city, but am leaning towards Valencia due to its higher affordability yet still feeling like a big city.

Next on to Alicante!