Valencia

Valencia is a port city on the Mediterranean coast of Spain and the capital of the Valencian Community. Paella was first cooked in the rice fields around it, and Valencian, the local form of Catalan, is an official language beside Spanish.

Valentia was founded by the Romans in 138 BC as a town for retired soldiers, and under Muslim rule it became Balansiya, known for the irrigation canals that still water the huerta, the market gardens around the city. James I of Aragon made it the capital of the new Kingdom of Valencia in 1238. The 15th century brought its golden age of trade and letters, and the Llotja de la Seda, a Gothic silk exchange with twisted stone columns, is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Valencia Cathedral keeps an agate cup venerated as the Holy Chalice of the Last Supper since the Middle Ages.

The Port of Valencia handles container ships for much of central Spain, and fruit from the huerta and the farms of the region leaves through it. Valencia oranges, a late-ripening variety grown worldwide, carry the name of the city, and rice grown under the protected designation Arroz de Valencia includes bomba, the short grain used for paella. Horchata, a cold milky drink pressed from tiger nuts, is sold in the old cafés called horchaterías.

Santiago Calatrava, born in Valencia, designed most of the City of Arts and Sciences, a group of white buildings with an opera house and a science museum. It stands in the old bed of the Turia, which was moved south of the city in the 1960s, and the former river course became the Turia Gardens, a park that runs across the city. The Fallas festival in March, held in honor of Saint Joseph, fills the streets with satirical figures of wood and paper that are burned on the last night, and UNESCO lists it as intangible heritage.