Valencia, rice fields to riverbed.
Which paella class actually takes you to the market first. Whether the aquarium ticket is worth half a day. Where the old riverbed takes you on a bike. Every tour in Valencia, reviewed and ranked.
A $44 aquarium ticket outsells every boat trip in Valencia.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers actually went. The aquarium runs away with it; after that it is the bus pass, the flamenco room and a catamaran that costs less than lunch.
1
Oceanogràfic Entry Ticket
Get a timed entry ticket to Oceanogràfic in Valencia, Europe’s largest sea life center, with 45,000 creatures across themed oceans.
From · $44
Read our review →
2
24 or 48-Hour Hop-on Hop-off Bus Ticket
from $31
3
Palosanto Flamenco Show Ticket
from $25
4
Catamaran Cruise with Sunset Option
from $17
5
Valencia Old Town Tour with Wine & Tapas in 11th Century Historic Monument
from $96
6
Oceanogràfic, Hemisfèric & Science Museum Combo
from $54
7
City Highlights Guided Bike Tour
from $26
8
Sunset or Daytime Catamaran Cruise with Drink
from $18
9
Old Town Tour, Wine & Tapas in an 11th c. Monument
from $94
The rice, the riverbed, and the four other reasons you came to Valencia.
Paella cooked where the rice actually grows, an aquarium under a white concrete shell, nine kilometres of park in a drained riverbed, and an old town you can cross in twenty minutes. The handful of days most Valencia trips get planned around.
Valencia invented paella. Everywhere else is a variation.
Rabbit, chicken, flat beans, a wide shallow pan over wood, and absolutely no chorizo — the Valencian original is a specific recipe with a long argument attached. The classes worth booking start at a market stall and finish with the pan in the middle of the table.
Valencia moved its river out of the city and kept the park.
Nine kilometres of gardens run through the middle of town along the old course of the Turia, with the medieval bridges still crossing overhead and nothing underneath them. It is flat, it is shaded, and it is why so much of Valencia is best seen on two wheels.
Out of Valencia — the day trips
Albufera Natural Park18 tours
Montanejos Thermal Springs26 tours
Caves of San José8 tours- Hiking & Canyoning42 tours
Requena & Utiel Wineries10 tours
Peñíscola Castle7 tours
Gandía & Cullera9 tours- Every day trip →
By experience — what kind of Valencia day?
Valencia built a science-fiction skyline in a dry riverbed.
The white shells at the seaward end of the old Turia bed hold Europe’s largest aquarium, a planetarium inside a giant concrete eye, and a science museum you are allowed to touch. Tickets are dated, the aquarium alone takes half a day, and the combined ones save money the moment you do more than one.
- 1Oceanogràfic Entry Ticketfrom $44
- 2Oceanogràfic, Hemisfèric & Science Museum Combofrom $54
- 3Principe Felipe Science Museum Entry Ticketfrom $11
Valencia has a lagoon, a park in a dry riverbed, and a river you sail underground.
Spain has no shortage of old towns and good food. These three are geography, and they are the reason the day trips out of this city are better than the guidebooks suggest.
The Albufera
Ten kilometres south of the city a freshwater lagoon sits behind a sandbar, ringed by the paddies that made paella possible in the first place. Flat-bottomed boats work the shallows, the flooded fields turn into a mirror in the last hour of light, and the restaurants at El Palmar cook rice that grew a few hundred metres away. Go late in the day; the sunset is the whole point.
- 1Albufera Day Trip with Boat Tour and Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 556 reviews
- 2The Original Albufera Tour: Barraca, Boat Ride & Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 281 reviews
- 3Albufera Jeep and Boat Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 253 reviews
The Turia Gardens
After the Turia flooded the city in the 1950s the river was rerouted south, and the empty bed became a park running from the old walls to the sea. Football pitches, orange trees, a climbable giant, and the original stone bridges still arching overhead with grass underneath them. It is the reason a bike here beats a bus, and why the tours all start in the shade.
- 1City Highlights Guided Bike Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,373 reviews
- 2Valencia Bike Tour from the City to the Beach, plus Bike Guy App!★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,187 reviews
- 3Valencia Bike Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 826 reviews
The Underground River
At Vall d’Uixó a river runs out of a hillside, and you go back up it in a small boat: the longest navigable underground river in Europe, through galleries of stalactites with the guide ducking at the low bits. It holds around twenty degrees all year, which is either a blessing or a shock depending on the month. Half a day from the city, and unlike everything else on this page it does not care what the weather is doing.
- 1Caves of San José Guided Excursion and Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,717 reviews
- 2San Jose Caves Guided Tour from Valencia★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 732 reviews
- 3Caves of San José Guided Tour & Boat Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 179 reviews
Valencia, from an $8 boat on the lagoon upwards.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it actually costs, with the most-reviewed pick in each band. A good day here starts at the price of a menu del día.
Entry tickets, flamenco rooms, catamaran hours and most of the bike tours. This is where the majority of Valencia lives.
- 1Oceanogràfic Entry Ticketfrom $44
- 224 or 48-Hour Hop-on Hop-off Bus Ticketfrom $31
- 3Palosanto Flamenco Show Ticketfrom $25
The full days out: paella classes with the market run attached, Albufera trips, the thermal-spring hikes up the valley.
Private guides, chartered boats and the Utiel-Requena wine days that come home with lunch already eaten.
Valencia’s beach is a tram ride from the cathedral.
All boat trips →Two kilometres of sand, a working port and a marina full of catamarans, all reachable from the old town before your coffee goes cold. The boats leave in the late afternoon for a reason.
Sunset or Daytime Catamaran Cruise with Drink
Read our review →
You can walk across old Valencia in twenty minutes and still miss most of it.
Two medieval gates left standing when the walls came down, a market hall the size of a railway station that still sells fish at eight in the morning, a silk exchange that UNESCO listed, and a cathedral that keeps a small agate cup in a side chapel and calls it the Holy Grail. Two popes have said mass with it, and most visitors walk straight past the door. The good tours slow it down and go inside things.
- 1Valencia Old Town Tour with Wine & Tapas in 11th Century Historic Monumentfrom $96
- 2Old Town Tour, Wine & Tapas in an 11th c. Monumentfrom $94
- 3Essentials and World Heritages Sites Walking Tourfrom $21
The Valencia bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be sorted the night before over a beer on a terrace. These cannot — they run on dated tickets, small rooms and a calendar that does not care when your flight lands.
- 01Fallas Festival Walking Tour with Entry TicketFallas runs 15–19 March and ends with the sculptures burning in the street. Beds and tours go months ahead, not weeks.
- 02Oceanogràfic Entry TicketTickets are dated and the aquarium alone eats half a day. Summer morning slots are the first to go.
- 03Palosanto Flamenco Show TicketThese are small rooms with the tables close to the boards. The popular nights fill days ahead, not hours.
- 04Paella Cooking Class, Wine Tasting & Central Market in ValenciaThe class buys its ingredients at the market that same morning, so numbers are capped and the date is fixed the moment you book.
When Valencia gets to 35 degrees, move the day to either end of it.
July and August here are hot and humid, and the middle of the day is not the time to be crossing the old town on foot. Locals solve it the same way every year: early mornings, afternoons in the water or under a roof, and everything sociable after eight. All of these run at the right end of the day.
Three days in Valencia, in the order that works.
Old town
The paella
The riverbed
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