Valencia itinerary for first-timers

Valencia's main square is a wide triangle of fountains, flower stalls and grand early-20th-century façades: the City Hall with its clock tower on one side, the domed Post Office on the other. In March this is where the daily mascletà firecracker displays of Las Fallas shake the city.

• City Hall and clock tower
• Central Post Office
• Flower stalls and fountain

The square is at its calmest early in the morning; the cafés on the pedestrianised side catch the sun.

The Central Market is one of Europe's largest fresh-food halls, a modernist building of iron, glass and painted tiles with hundreds of stalls of fish, ham, fruit and spices. Across the square stands La Lonja, the 15th-century silk exchange whose hall of twisted stone columns earned it a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list, with the baroque church of Santos Juanes between them.

• Mercado Central stalls
• La Lonja's column hall
• Santos Juanes church
• Plaza del Mercado

Go before noon: the market closes in the early afternoon and the fish counters are at their best in the morning.

The cathedral mixes Romanesque, Gothic and baroque doorways and keeps a chalice venerated as the Holy Grail in a side chapel. Its octagonal bell tower, the Miguelete, can be climbed for a view over the rooftops to the sea. The Plaza de la Reina in front of it was recently pedestrianised, and the tiny circular Plaça Redona is a few steps away.

• San Nicolás church frescoes
• Miguelete bell tower
• Holy Grail chapel
• Plaza de la Reina
• Plaça Redona

The Miguelete climb is 207 steps with no lift; late afternoon gives the softest light over the old town.

Behind the cathedral, the Plaza de la Virgen is the heart of Roman and medieval Valencia: the Turia fountain with its reclining river god, the domed basilica of the Virgin of the Forsaken and the Gothic Palace of the Generalitat. On the Plaça de l'Almoina next door, a glass floor looks down on the excavated Roman forum and baths.

• Turia fountain
• Basilica of the Virgen de los Desamparados
• Palau de la Generalitat
• Almoina archaeological site

On Thursdays at noon the Water Tribunal, a medieval irrigation court, meets at the cathedral's Apostles' Door on the square.

Valencia's centre is made for an evening stroll. Start at the rococo alabaster doorway of the Palace of the Marqués de Dos Aigües, home of the ceramics museum, and follow Carrer de Sant Vicent Màrtir to the floodlit cathedral and the Plaza de la Virgen. The small squares in between, Santa Catalina and the Plaça Redona, fill with terraces, and the City Hall square glows at the end.

• Palace of the Marqués de Dos Aigües
• Floodlit cathedral and Miguelete
• Plaça de Santa Catalina
• Plaza del Ayuntamiento by night

Valencians eat late; the terraces are busiest after 9 pm, and horchata cafés near Santa Catalina stay open into the evening in summer.

El Carmen is the oldest and most bohemian corner of the old town, a tangle of lanes between two surviving gates of the medieval walls. The Torres de Quart on the west side are still pitted by French cannonballs from 1808; the Gothic Torres de Serranos on the north side were the ceremonial entrance to the city and can be climbed for views over the Turia Gardens. In between: street art, convent courtyards and small squares.

• Torres de Quart
• Street art on Carrer de Baix and around
• Centre del Carme in a former convent
• Torres de Serranos

Climb the Torres de Serranos first thing: the terrace is small and the morning light falls on the old town behind you.

After a catastrophic flood in 1957 the Turia river was diverted south of the city, and its old bed became a nine-kilometre park that curves around the old town. The walk from the Serranos Towers towards the sea passes under a string of historic stone bridges and modern ones by Calatrava, between pine groves, fountains, sports fields and the giant Gulliver playground.

• Pont de Serrans and Pont de la Trinitat
• Jardines de Monforte
• Pont de les Flors
• Gulliver park

The Jardines de Monforte, a neoclassical garden with clipped hedges and statues, sits just above the riverbed near the Pont del Real and is free to enter.

The Colón market is a 1916 modernist hall of iron, brick and ceramic that now shelters cafés and horchata bars under its arches, in the middle of the Eixample, the elegant grid of 19th-century avenues south of the old town. From here it is a straight walk down the Turia Gardens to the City of Arts and Sciences.

• Mercat de Colón façade
• Horchata and fartons under the arches
• Eixample avenues

Horchata, the chilled tiger-nut drink, is a Valencian institution; try it here with a fartón pastry before the afternoon walk.

At the seaward end of the Turia Gardens, Santiago Calatrava's white complex is Valencia's modern face: the eye-shaped Hemisfèric mirrored in its pools, the whale-skeleton Science Museum, the arched garden walk of L'Umbracle, the opera house and, across the water, the Oceanogràfic, Europe's largest aquarium. It is free to wander the whole site, and at dusk the buildings glow against the turquoise pools.

• Hemisfèric
• Science Museum
• L'Umbracle promenade
• Palau de les Arts
• Oceanogràfic
• Assut de l'Or bridge

Stay until the lights come on: the reflections in the pools are the classic Valencia photograph, and the walk back along the Turia is lit.

Once a separate fishing village, El Cabanyal is a grid of low houses faced with coloured tiles and ironwork balconies a few streets back from the beach. Threatened by demolition for years, it has been restored and is now Valencia's most photogenic neighbourhood, with a lively covered market at its heart.

• Tiled façades on Carrer de la Reina and around
• Mercado del Cabanyal
• Semana Santa Marinera murals

Come early: the tiles are brightest in the morning sun and the market is busiest before noon.

The old port was rebuilt for the America's Cup in 2007 and is now a marina of promenades, cafés and the Veles e Vents building. Beside it the Playa de las Arenas begins the city's long beach, with giant Valencian and Spanish flags, a wooden boardwalk and a row of paella restaurants along the Passeig de Neptú.

• Marina Real and Veles e Vents
• Giant flags
• Passeig de Neptú boardwalk
• Playa de las Arenas

This is the classic spot for a long paella lunch by the sea; most places serve it only at lunchtime, from about 1.30 pm.

North of Las Arenas, the Platja del Cabanyal and the Malvarrosa run for about three kilometres of wide golden sand, backed by a palm-lined promenade of beach bars, volleyball nets and cyclists. A footbridge at the far end crosses into Alboraia and the quieter Patacona beach, with a viewpoint and a palm grove.

• Platja del Cabanyal
• Passeig Marítim de la Malva-rosa
• Mirador de la Patacona
• Patacona promenade

The promenade has little shade; in summer walk it in the late afternoon, when the sea breeze picks up.

Just south of the old town, Russafa (Ruzafa in Spanish) is Valencia's most fashionable neighbourhood: a 19th-century grid of vintage shops, bookshops, galleries and dozens of bars around the neighbourhood market and the church of San Valero. The Gran Via on its western edge is a wide boulevard with a garden promenade down the middle.

• Mercat de Russafa
• San Valero church
• Carrer de Cuba and Carrer de Sueca
• Gran Via promenade

Russafa is at its best after 8 pm, when the terraces fill; it is a 10-minute walk from the Plaza del Ayuntamiento.