This Barcelona Alternative Has Spacious Beaches And Great Food
By Hillary Louise Johnson
VACATIONS
While everyone should visit Barcelona at least once, Valencia is an alternative with superb food, an innovative central park, and a thriving beach scene with clean, clear waters.
Valencia has the best paella in Spain, as it is where the dish was invented. At some beachfront restaurants, like the famed Casa Carmela, you can enjoy a communal pan of paella.
After digging into paella, take a siesta and lounge around on the beach. The central Playa de Las Arenas is bustling with activity and is a great destination for water sports.
The city's most seductive attraction is its Turia Gardens, a huge, 6-mile-long greensward crossed by 18 bridges. The sections were all designed by different landscape architects.
Attached to the gardens is architect Sergio Calatrava's futuristic City of Arts and Sciences, a vast complex containing museums, a planetarium, an IMAX theater and opera house.