The patroness of Valencia, Our Lady of the Forsaken (Mare de Déu dels Desemparats), lives in this small Baroque basilica on the Plaza de la Virgen. The interior is densely decorated under a frescoed dome by Antonio Palomino — the statue of the Virgin sits behind the main altar, almost always surrounded by candles, flower offerings, and supplicants.
The basilica is the centre of the city's most theatrical religious moment: the Ofrenda de Flores during the Fallas festival in March, when tens of thousands of fallas commission members process through the city in regional dress and pile flowers around a giant wooden figure of the Virgin until she is buried in colour. Outside Fallas it is a five-minute visit, but a moving one.