I think one of my favorite parts about living in Europe in my 20s is traveling to visit my friends in other countries. One of my super close friends Malak from university in Arizona had been teaching English in Spain for the past two years since we graduated and I had wanted to visit her when she was living in Sevilla the first year but the timings didn’t work out.
When she moved this past year to Valencia, another one of my friends Clara that I met while studying abroad in Lyon happened to also be living there, and so I introduced them and they became friends! As the stars aligned, I knew I had to make a visit.
During the spring of pursuing my masters in Paris, I made a weekend trip to Valencia for a much needed break from school and working, as well has to soak up the Spanish sun.
Visiting Valencia ended up being heaven for a foodie like me. From tasting tapas and pintxos to trying traditional horchata, my tastebuds were in paradise and didn’t want to leave.
In this blog, I’m going to take you through everything we did, curated with a local favorite spots to eat from my friends that live there!
Tip: In two full days, you can definitely see enough of the city to really take in the culture, but Valencia is actually quite big! I would recommend at least three full days to be able to fully take it in and experience as much as possible.
At a glance :
Day 1
Tapas at the Historical Center Plaça Redona
Torres de Serranos : Lookout over Valencia
One of the oldest Horchaterías in Valencia
Jardins de Monforte
Dinner at Voltereta Manhattan
Drinks at a Library Café
Day 2
Breakfast at Hoja La Brunches y Flores
Stroll through Jardín del Turia
Tapas by the beach at Platja de la Patacona
Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias
Hot Pot Dinner
Day 3
One last breakfast in Valencia
Day 1
Tapas at Plaça Redona
Once I arrived in the Valencia airport, the first thing I did was take the metro intro the city to meet my friend. The city center is super accessible and honestly there’s no need to take an uber! Once I dropped my things off at her place, we departed in search of tapas for lunch.
Malak decided to take us walking through the gorgeous streets of Valencia to Plaça Redona, which happens to be a historical center of Valencia celebrated by many local artists’ craft shops and tapas bars. We found a table at Pintxo i Trago and honestly it was so perfect.
Fun fact: Pintxos are actually the Basque version of tapas from the northern part of Spain near Bilbao and San Sebastion! I will be having a blog coming shortly with my trip to Bilbao where I will talk more about pintxos and how they’re different from tapas.
We each took turns going up and ordering tapas. Malak ordered the first round and then me the second. I definitely had some difficulty since I don’t speak Spanish, but Malak was fully fluent so she helped me out!
What I love about the tapa culture in Spain is being able to try many different combinations and sharing with the people who you’re with. When I visited Barcelona solo, I wanted to have this experience but wasn’t able to share with anyone! So I was so happy to finally live out this little dream.
Plaça Redona was so lively was lots of people enjoying their lunch and also live music at one point. I highly recommend strolling through and stopping here for lunch for a true classic Spanish experience.
Torres de Serranos : Lookout Over Valencia
After lunch, we headed to Torres de Serranos to see the city of Valencia from above. This was such a cool spot, not only for its views but also for its history.
This tower is hundreds of years old and was originally built as a form of defense at the gates of the city in 1392. Between the late 1500s and late 1800s, it was used as a prison for the nobility. Nowadays, you can hike to the top for incredible 360 degree views of all of Valencia!
One of the oldest Horchaterías in Valencia
Next, we decided it was time for a sweet treat, so we visited Horchatería de Santa Catalina, which is known for being one of the oldest horchaterías in all of Valencia, serving it’s Valencian specialties for over 200 years.
As a huge lover of horchata, having worked in an authentic Mexican restaurant back home in Upstate New York for nearly 6 years, and having lived in Arizona for 4 years with a heavy influence of Mexican culture, I was super excited to try Valencia’s horchata. As a matter of fact, horchata actually originates from Valencia! So this is as original and traditional as it gets here at the Horchatería de Santa Catalina.
To my surprise, Valencian Horchata has a completely different taste than Mexican Horchata! Come to find out, horchata from Valencia, also known as Horchata de Chufa, is made with soaked and sweetened tigernuts, while Mexican Horchata, or Horchata de Arroz, is made from a base of soaked rice with milk and cinnamon.
Personally, I prefer Mexican Horchata over the Horchata de Chufa. It is probably because I’ve been having it for years and I am so accustomed to it, but also I love how rich and dessert like Mexican horchata is. For me, it’s always a treat and so comforting.
The taste of Horchata de Chufa, as Malak had pointed out, and I completely agree with her, has more of a taste of carrots! This was my first time trying the original horchata and I was definitely shocked that it wasn’t the same creamy and cinnamony drink that I was used to. It was still good, just quite different than what I’m used to.
To read more about the back story of Horchata de Chufa, check out this blog!
The churros with a side of the rich hot chocolate dipping sauce went perfectly with our horchata. I am always a lover of Spanish churros!
Another typical Valencian sweet that you can find here are fartons, which people normally dip in their horchatas. We didn’t try them during my trip, but looking around at the restaurant it definitely seems like a popular choice!
Jardins de Monforte
After taking our relaxing pause with churros and horchata, we walked to one of Malak’s favorite gardens in Valencia, Jardins de Monforte. If connoisseurs of gardens was a thing, Malak would definitely be one! From her time living in Madrid, Sevilla, and now Valencia, she’s always found the most stunning gardens and spends most of her time there.
Jardins de Monforte is about a 20 minute walk from Horchatería de Santa Catalina, crossing the Jardí del Turía. This was such a beautiful spot to take in all of the greenery of Valencia and its orange trees!
This garden was so calm, and there were also many locals there having photo shoots for their young kids in gorgeous dresses and suits!
Dinner at Voltereta Manhattan
From Jardins de Monforte, it was nearly time to meet up with our friend Clara for dinner at Voltereta Manhattan, which is about a 20 minute walk away.
We had made reservations for this restaurant a few days in advance, which I highly recommend doing because they fill up quick! We were only able to get one of the early reservations around 19h or 19h30, which is on the very early end, especially in Spain.
Walking into the restaurant, I felt like I was in the wrong place at first because the entrance is very ambiguous and doesn’t have any signage. However, it has more of a Great Gatsby-speakeasy theme, and you walk through the next door once you check in and the place is transformed into a stunning jazz restaurant seeming like it was straight from the 1920’s.
I would give everything about this restaurant a 10/10. I loved their Great Gatsby theme, the rigatoni with cashew and burrata pesto was heavenly, and all of their desserts were to die for. We had their lotus cake, mango passion ice cream, and “Tiramisu on the Orient Express” which came out smoking in the cutest vintage tea kettle.
To top it all off, there was live jazz music in the front of the restaurant carrying the 20’s vibe throughout dinner.
For me, it was absolutely crazy to have dinner with both Malak and Clara since I met them in two completely different parts of the world, and now they’re really good friends! I was blown away by our worlds colliding like this.
Drinks at Ubik Café
Finally to end the night, we all went to Ubik Café for drinks with one of Malak’s close friends. This is their favorite spot to hangout, chat, have a drink or even coffee, and I absolutely loved the concept of this place. It’s a book store café and bar, with books and board games lining the walls throughout, with a very relaxed and local feel.
Here, my friends convinced me to try a Tinto de Verano, which is a classic cocktail drink in Spain made with red wine and a lemon flavored soda. To be honest, coming from living in France where they take their wine so seriously, and even mixing orange juice with Champagne for a mimosa can cause someone a heart attack, I was nervous to try a soda mixed with red wine.
That being said, I actually loved the Tinto de Verano! It was so fresh and tasty. This might be my new favorite drink!
Day 2
Breakfast at a Flower Inspired Café
To start off my second full day in Valencia, we went to Malak’s favorite spot, Hoja La Brunches y Flores, which is a floral inspired café. I loved everything about the vibe of the café – it was super relaxing and the food was amazing.
I ordered their Shakshuka with a cappuccino and it was everything that I was hoping for. A filling and satisfying breakfast with the perfect cappuccino to go with.
If there’s one thing I love about Spain, it’s that they always do their coffee right. No matter which city I’ve been in, their cappuccinos and lattes have always been some of the best I’ve had! Super creamy, even with oat milk, and the perfect balance between the milk and espresso.
Also, one thing interesting to note is that on their menu they had what’s called a Capuorange, which is a cappuccino infused with orange juice! As Valencia and Spain are known for their oranges, they really hone in on the local produce. Malak had ordered this, as you can see in the upper right part of the picture below, and to my surprise it was actually quite good. I would’ve never thought of this combination!
Stroll through Jardín del Turia
After breakfast, we made our way to Jardín del Turia before hopping on the bus to go to the beach.
This elongated park used to be river Turia that led into the sea, but was diverted back in the mid 1900s to avoid flooding. Nowawadays, Turia is filled with trees, cyclists, runners, and people enjoying the peace of nature.
We took our time strolling through the park, chatting, sitting on the benches, and enjoying the sun before grabbing another coffee from Fav Coffee and making our way to the ocean.
Tapas by the beach at Platja de la Patacona
Our big plan for the day was to meet our friend Clara by the beach and spend the afternoon together. From where we ended our park stroll near Fav Coffee, we were able to hop on Bus 31 and talk it all the way towards Platja de la Patacona, about a 30 minute ride.
We all met up by the beach, and decided we were actually feeling a bit hungry so we decided to sit down for some tapas at one of the beach side restaurants. We sat at Casa Navarro for a late lunch.
As turns out it is probably best to go earlier for lunch as they were starting to wrap up the lunch service. We had wanted to order a paella to share, but they had made the last one for the table next to us!
Instead, we ordered patatas bravas (Spain’s famous potatoes), pan con salsas (bread and their salsas), and fresh pineapple for dessert. This turned out to be the best idea, all of the salsas were so tasty and the patatas bravas with the garlic aoli was heavenly. The fresh pineapple for dessert was the perfect refreshing treat!
We had wanted to join a free salsa class a bit further down the beach, but by the time we finished eating and chatting, we didn’t have enough time to make it. But, if you go you should totally join the free class!
After we enjoyed our tapas, we walked over to the beach to put our feet in the sand, set up a picnic blanket, and enjoy more of the views.
Coming to Valencia, there were two things I had really wanted to do outside of seeing my friends. The first was having tapas, and the next was seeing the ocean. This afternoon was absolutely perfect, and coming from Paris where we’d hardly seen the sun recently, I was soaking up as much vitamin D as I could get.
Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias
Our next stop after the Platja de la Patacona was Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, which is an iconic landmark for the city of Valencia. In English, it is called the The City of Arts and Sciences, and is celebrated as holding the largest aquarium in all of Europe with over 45,000 animals.
The architecture itself represents a whale, and the entire complex stretches across 2 kilometers!
Just seeing the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias from the outside was actually incredible. You really have to walk around and through the whole complex to see all of the details and really take in the masterpiece that it is.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go inside to see the exhibits, but the next time I visit Valencia it will definitely be on my list.
Hot Pot Dinner
Our final spot of the night was at Shullun Hot Pot, which is one of Malak’s favorite spots, as well as her friend Alexis that we met up with. They had mentioned hot pot the night before when we were at the library café for drinks, and since I had never tried it before they said we absolutely needed to go.
For my first hot pot experience, I was definitely overwhelmed trying to time out when to put the food in the broths, especially because I would forget what I already put in haha. But it was so tasty! And going with two friends that were pros with hot pot, it was such a great dinner.
The staff was also so friendly here and had remembered my friends from before. If you’re in the mood for Chinese food in Valencia, definitely check out this spot!
Day 3
One last taste of Valencia
For my final morning in Valencia, Malak had to head off early to work at her school since it was a Monday, so I had just enough time to have breakfast in a café before I needed to be on my way to the airport.
She had recommended one of her favorite cafés, Rogel, right near her apartment to try out, which ended up being delicious.
I had their tosta con aguacate y salmon with a cappuccino, and everything was so fresh! I tried out my Spanish briefly while ordering, and even though I don’t know any Spanish at all, Malak had prepared me and I was determined to try! The baristas were super kind and encouraging and only switched to English when I didn’t understand when she asked me what type of bread I wanted.
Definitely visit Rogel for an amazing cappuccino, pastries, and even their tostas!
After my breakfast and before heading to the airport, I actually decided to stop at the grocery store to pick up some Valencian oranges to take back to France with me since Valencia is known for their oranges. Even though I can buy them in France, I wanted them straight from the source! I’m so glad I did since I didn’t have a chance to have one all weekend, they were so fresh and tasty.
I hope you enjoyed this fully detailed foodie guide to visiting Valencia, Spain, inspired by my friends’ favorite spots from living here!
Valencia was an absolutely gorgeous city filled with so many things to see and do, and so many opportunities to taste the culture of Valencia and Spain.
After this brief weekend, I was easily convinced by my friends that I want to learn Spanish next once I finish my masters! Then we can yap in 3 languages, as Clara also speaks French.
Be sure to follow my blog to see where I head to next, and for tips on how to move abroad!
Xx,
Carmela