“I’VE found the Holy Grail – although no sign of John Cleese and the rest of the Monty Python troupe,” my text sent from the Catedral de Valencia to the WhatsApp family group chat read.
Coming to Valencia, I didn’t expect to be embarking on a quest for the most famous relic in Christianity, but that’s what I found myself looking for on the third and final day of my trip to Spain’s third largest city.
Two days prior, on a walking tour of Valencia old town, our guide had told us the Grail – said to be the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper – was located in the 13th century structure.
With some free time on my hands, I stopped off at the cathedral, keen to find the mysterious object for myself. Even without seeing the grail, the cathedral is well worth a visit. Touted as a magnificent site of Valencian art history, it features paintings by Goya, Maella and others.
Architecturally, it’s a wonder to behold, with 14th century gargoyles, a 15th century bell tower, and domes from the Baroque period .
“The Cathedral of Valencia was enlarged as the population was increasing and was renovated the same as we do with our homes – we update to new styles or to our new necessity,” the guide on our walking tour had told us.
On that tour, we wandered through what is one of the largest historical centres in Europe, crossing squares and pedestrianised streets where building after building has you pulling out your phone to take a snap.
That was one of three of the ‘Valencia Green Routes’ – particularly significant as the city is the European Green Capital 2024, an accolade it achieved because of its sustainability efforts.
But more on that later.
On day one of our visit, we stopped at the Mercado Central – quite like the English Market, only much larger.
Our first day also included a visit to the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero (CAHH), a contemporary art gallery in the old Valeriola Palace, an iconic 17th-century building. This, to my surprise, was one of the main highlights of our trip to Valencia.
I’ve never been a lover of contemporary art – I think I’ve been too ignorant to ‘get’ what it’s all about. But that changed during a fascinating guided tour around the gallery.
One piece to capture my attention was an artwork entitled Walhalla, by German artist Anselm Kiefer. Our guide explained that the painting was originally a landscape of a city.
“He didn’t like this painting, so he decides to destroy it in order to give it a new image and he takes lead and he throws molten lead onto the artwork to destroy it,” she said.
“This artwork weighs 650kg. It’s very heavy. It cannot be separated in any way… it had to enter the museum before closing the walls of this room.”
Such is its weight, that the walls had to be reenforced to support it.
Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero also has a number of site-specific installations, including Tunnel for unfolding time by Olafur Eliasson p a tunnel in which visitors can view 1,035 pieces of glass. Our guide explained that, while they appear multi- coloured, they all have a pink filter.
“When you change your position, the colour your eyes perceive varies,” she explained.
Our guide said Eliasson “has a very emotional attachment to the landscape of Iceland [he spent summers there with his father] – the glaciers that are melting. He is very worried about climate change. He always tries to do installations that invite you to enter and maybe feel a little bit amazed by nature and its beauty”.
The artwork that fascinated me most though, and that has lingered in my mind since , is a digital piece, The World of Irreversible Change, created by teamLab, a collective of around 600 people. It looks like a streetscape somewhere in Asia but the world of the work is also connected to the outside world of Valencia, so it has the same conditions in terms of the weather and the season of the year.
“When it rains in Valencia, literally it will rain in the artwork. And the people will have umbrellas and they will adapt to the rain,” said the guide. “At night, everything goes dark, the lanterns light up and the people they go to sleep. Every day, it’s a different artwork. Every second it’s a different artwork. It’s incredible.”
The piece is also interactive. Visitors can cast a hand over figures in the piece, and the people in the artwork become disgruntled and conflicts will begin.
And if you’re wondering, no, I certainly did not choose to bother the artwork’s inhabitants!
From the gallery, we walked over to the Church of St Nicholas – dubbed the Sistine Chapel of Valencia – before strolling back to our accommodation, the SH Colón hotel, 15 minutes away. That evening, our group met for tapas at Mi Cub in the Colón Market. Somewhat like Cork’s Marina Market, it is a spot where locals come for a drink or a bite to eat after work.
Of the places we ate – the Only You hotel, El Tridente de Neptuno and Nuo Gourmet – Mi Cub was my favourite. Here I sampled cheeses, breads and olive oil and – nicest of all – Valencian oranges with caramelised brown sugar on top.
Turia Garden in Valencia, with the opera house shown on the right – a must-visit if you are going to the city, says Amy Power
Next day, we were up early on a bike ride to explore the city. We went through the 9km of Turia Garden, a lush urban park featuring almost 40 different types of trees, leisure and sports areas and more – a must visit if you’re planning a trip to Valencia.
The park was formerly the site of the River Turia until it was rerouted south of the city to prevent flooding. Proposals to develop a motorway along the river’s former course were vehemently opposed and the park was developed instead.
Our bike ride took us into the City of Arts and Sciences – where you can find the opera house, science museum, the aquarium. and more. The latter, the Oceanogràfic Valencia, is said to be the largest aquarium in Europe and features everything from tortoises to tropical fish.
On the ocean theme, we next visited Las Arenas Beach. While certainly clean and well serviced by public transport, it wasn’t my favourite part of the visit – but then again, I’d be hard pressed to prefer a beach to some of our gems at home.
On our last day, we visited Albufera Natural Park 10km from the city, whose main attraction is a large fresh- water lagoon spanning 2,800 hectares. The landscape here, as one of my travel companions remarked, is like something out of Where The Crawdads Sing. The park hosts up to 300 different species of birds.
We took a trip on the lagoon on a handcrafted boat known as an albuferenc, which took about 30 minutes; a pleasant way to spend a morning.
We boarded our Ryanair flight back to Cork, and as the chatter on the plane turned to rain on Leeside, I knew home was on the horizon.
For more information on things to do in Valencia, see the Visit Valencia website, www.visitvalencia.com/en.
