Valencia is Spain's third-largest city but one of its most underrated. It has the Mediterranean climate, the beaches, and the nightlife of Barcelona without the crowds or the prices — and it is the birthplace of paella, which alone is reason enough to visit.
The old city centre is compact and handsome, with the Gothic Lonja de la Seda (Silk Exchange, a UNESCO World Heritage Site), the Mercado Central (one of Europe's largest covered markets), and a cathedral that claims to house the Holy Grail. The dry bed of the old Turia river has been converted into a long park that runs through the city and leads to Santiago Calatrava's spectacular City of Arts and Sciences complex — part science museum, part aquarium, part opera house, all futuristic white concrete and reflecting pools.
The beach stretches for kilometres along the eastern edge of the city, and the neighbourhood of El Cabanyal behind it has a village feel with tiled facades and good seafood restaurants. Las Fallas in March is one of Spain's most extraordinary festivals — enormous papier-mâché figures are built over months, displayed for a week, then burned to the ground in a single fiery night of firecrackers and tears.
Nightlife starts very late — do not show up before 1 am or you will think the city is dead. It is not.