An eighteen-metre-high sculpture of an Iberian woman, made up of 22,000 small ceramic bricks arranged to form the silhouette of the famous Lady of Elche — a 5th-century BC Iberian bust that remains one of the great Spanish archaeological mysteries. The monumental version stands beside the Turia gardens near the Palau de la Música.
The sculptor Manolo Valdés is one of contemporary Spain's best-known artists; his Dama scaled up the original to nearly the size of a city block, then made it out of small modules in homage to Mediterranean tile-craft. Up close it dissolves into squares; from a distance it sharpens into a face. Worth a five-minute detour.