The Valencian coast and hinterland offer easy escapes. El Saler and the Albufera natural park, twenty minutes south, are the closest and most distinctive — boat trips on the lagoon, paella in the rice-growing village of El Palmar, dunes along the sea. Sagunto, half an hour north, has one of the best-preserved Roman theatres in Spain and a Moorish-Iberian-Roman hilltop castle that piles up two thousand years of fortifications on a single rock.
Xàtiva, an hour south by train, is a handsome medieval-Moorish hill town with a magnificent two-castle fortress and a long history as the rival of Valencia in the 13th century — the Borgia popes were born here. Further south, Cullera and Gandía have long sandy beaches if you want a low-key alternative to the city ones.
For a longer day, the Roman aqueduct at Peñíscola and the dramatically perched old town make a worthwhile two-hour drive north up the coast.