Valencia, Spain: Tips & Recommendations

Spending a couple of days there next month, then getting the train to my folks place in Alicante.

Any reccos?

Awesome city, nice beaches and great food, laterooms.com and hotelbeds.com are both good for cheap chain hotels.

Stayed at the Novotel near the Congress Centre, tram/metro just outside the hotel and it takes about 15 minutes to get into town, room was about €45 a night, some real nice places if you're into minimalist design hotels, most of those seem to be near the Arts & Science sites.

The IVAM is worth a visit, great restaurant as well http://www.restaurantelasucursal.com/

I'd definitely recommend staying in the centre of town. The public transport network is good but it closes down fairly early for a city that doesn't really get going until 11pm or later, and finding a cab isn't as easy as it might be (for one thing, a fair chunk of central Valencia is pedestrianised). Also, the middle of town is really atmospheric after dark, which is more than can be said for the waterfront. We stayed here, which was both decent and central.

The City of Arts & Sciences is very impressive; it has a wow factor that photographs don't really capture. Otherwise, it's really just a good city for wandering (again, the historic centre is lovely) or lounging around (the beaches are pretty nice).

One word of warning: more or less every street has two names (one in Spanish, one in Valencian), but there's real inconsistency in how they're labelled, both on streets and on local maps (which are further complicated by the array of tiny alleys everywhere). I remember this being a real faff...

When are you going? We were there during Valencia Restaurant Week last autumn, and it's coming up again in a couple of weeks. We ate stupendously well for far less money than would otherwise have been the case. [U][/U]

Cheers for that guys.

Yeah down the coast where I'll move on to all the signs have Castilian and Valencian spellings, and you even see a lot of the Castilian signs sprayed on.

It's just tit-for-tat!

Going in mid-July, dates yet to be confirmed

I stayed here for a few days with the missus last summer, nice apartment, good location and good value between the two of us.

http://www.livingvalencia.com/apartamento.php?id=2[[/URL][URL="http://www.budgetplaces.com/valencia-apartment-8718-apartamentos-vitoria.html"]](http://www.livingvalencia.com/apartamento.php?id=4)

Been there a couple of times for the MotoGP - love the city.

+1 for staying in the centre, we stayed here. Was a great little place - cheap enough and right in the middle of the historical old city.

There's plenty of decent drinking and eating places on Calle Caballeros and Cafe del Mar, try Sol y Luna for drinks - plus a street (forget exactly where) full of quirky little shops of cool t shirts and jewellery. I did find a decent bike shop there too that had interesting stock, but cant recall where it was!

I found the trains to be decent for getting around the region, and the service to the the circuit was excellent, well worth a visit if you are into motorsport and there's an event on while you are there

there are quite a few cheap bike rental places where you can rent a mtb and have a cruise around. we cycled south of the city down to some of the beaches down there and further down and that was well nice as well as havin a potter thru the parks.

oh yeah sample some of the horchata it is well nice.

We cruised into Valencia from Barcelona for a day and a half - we got of the train and heard the bullring erupting next door...so in we went. It's savage, and I can't say I approve, but still a spectacle.