Exploring Valencia by bike, boat and foot reveals the outdoor ethos and sustainable ideals that won it the European Green Capital 2024 accolade – from forward-thinking urban planning to biodiversity conservation and slow food

Words Laura Field

My least favourite way of exploring a city? Until January, I’d have told you it was cycling. Calling for impeccable balance and a hawk-like sense of direction – neither of which I have – there’s plenty about navigating a bike, especially in urban areas, that always made me wary. Then I visited Valencia. When I found myself pedalling through the centre and not actively disliking it, I knew there had to be something special about this city.

The best way to see Valencia is by bike, I’d been told. With over 200km of cycle lanes lacing the city, getting out into the fresh air – reducing carbon and other polluting emissions at the same time – is easy and enjoyable. That’s just one of the many reasons why Valencia has been awarded the status of European Green Capital 2024. But what exactly does it mean to be a ‘Green Capital’?

On my arrival, a kind and softly spoken local, José Miguel, said something that I found frankly baffling. He told me that the course of the Turia River, the major waterway snaking through the centre, had been diverted around the city to provide irrigation for surrounding farms. The green credentials of this seemed questionable: yes, water is vital for farms, but why change its course so dramatically? The sheer scale, cost and effort of redirecting such a large waterway seemed daunting, not to mention the opposite of an eco-friendly urban ideal.

Yet as my cheerful cycling tour guide, Ali Dib, explained, that episode marked the moment when the roots of Valencia’s green flourishing were planted. The Turia had been prone to periodic flooding, with devastating impacts. After a catastrophic 1957 inundation that killed dozens and caused large-scale destruction, the Spanish government and Valencia’s mayor drew up the Plan Sur (South Plan) to reroute the Turia’s course around and south of the city. That left a bare swathe running through the centre. Proposals were mooted to construct a new highway along the dry riverbed. Citizens had other ideas.

Fervently opposed to such a busy new thoroughfare, Valencia’s residents protested, demanding instead that the space be turned into a park. The city’s leadership was convinced to change tack, and drafted in architect Ricardo Bofill to create what is today the Turia Garden. This verdant public space meandering over 9km through the centre is now the green artery of the city, where everyone congregates.

Urban activity

And congregate they do – with gusto. When I first visited, the park was bustling with joggers, cyclists, rollerbladers, dog walkers and enthusiastic footballers. Another time, an aspiring DJ was laying down electronic beats outside the Palau de la Música, a rather more formal venue that’s home to the Orchestra of Valencia. I saw line-dancers meticulously rehearsing their steps, and a squad of cheerleaders zestfully tracing their routine. I even watched supple acrobats swing from hoops suspended from one of the medieval bridges that still span the park.

And all this activity was taking place in January. As I discovered, life is lived enthusiastically outdoors in this part of the world, in stark contrast with the cold, damp London I’d just left. It helps that almost no resident in Valencia lives over 300m from a green space – a figure that the city is working to reduce to 200m – contributing significantly to an improved quality of life.

In contrast to the anxiety I’d felt cycling in other cities, exploring Valencia in the saddle sparked a new-found enthusiasm in me. Perhaps that’s because few urban centres have a cycling infrastructure to match Valencia’s.

Along with its extensive network of cycle paths, the centres of several of Valencia’s central squares – including Plaza de la Reina (Queen’s Square), Plaza del Mercado (Market Square) and Plaza del Ayuntamiento (Town Hall Square) – are surprisingly peaceful areas accessible only to pedestrians and chirpy cyclists like me. How calming it was not to be assailed by the bleating of car horns and the growling of engines, allowing me to marvel at the layers of history in peace. The only challenge was to keep my balance while gazing around in awe at architectural masterpieces such as the Art Nouveau Mercado Central (Central Market) and the Gothic cathedral, dating back to the 13th century.

Parking my bike, I stepped out along the city’s honey-hued streets to explore on foot, emitting an involuntary sigh of satisfaction. Life’s about appreciating the little things. And in Valencia, the little things include balmy January sunshine and countless orange trees yielding freshly pressed juice.

It doesn’t take an experienced food critic to grasp that dishes prepared from scratch using locally sourced produce make the most delicious meals. And Valencia is blessed with the freshest ingredients in abundance, much of them harvested from La Huerta (The Orchard) – the 120-square-kilometre expanse of vegetable gardens and fruit trees around the city. Keen to trace the next steps in the food chain, I headed to market.

Market force

Completed in 1928 on the site of an existing al-fresco market, Valencia’s stylish Mercado Central is nothing short of a magnificent cathedral of food. Not only does it boast fine Art Nouveau architecture and decorative motifs referencing orchards and gardens, with a sales area spanning over 8,000 square metres it’s reputedly the largest fresh produce retail market in Europe.

Unsurprisingly, sightseers love to browse its hundreds of stalls, but this is no tourist trap; rather, resident Valencians are very much the primary customers, reflecting an innate passion for good food.

“One of the strangest things I’ve ever been asked is whether I like to cook,” said Eva Fernández, a native Valencian who showed me around. “For me, I don’t even think of it as a hobby. Of course I like to cook. In Valencia, we grow up loving food, and preparing it is a natural part of everyday life.”

Eva and I were doing as Valencians do: visiting the market first thing in the morning to start the day with something fresh. Strolling around and admiring the structure’s architectural beauty as much as the kaleidoscopic produce, I was entranced by the rhythms of shopping: the sounds of wheeled baskets, bags opening and being filled, the warm pleasantries exchanged between vendors and their regulars.“Cariño” (dear) seemed to be uttered every second word, reflecting the ubiquitous affection and high spirits of traders and customers alike.

The market is clearly at the heart of life for Valencians of all ages – a convivial meeting place as much as it is a shopping destination. And what shopping: I gawked at radishes the size of tennis balls and ribbed tomatoes so juicy I was tempted to bite into them like an apple. As I savoured fresh orange juice, I mused that I might actually become a morning person if I lived in Valencia – no mean feat.

Park life

If finding that such rich culinary bounty originated right on Valencia’s doorstep came as a delightful surprise, even more eye-opening was the discovery that Albufera Natural Park lies just 10km from the city centre. Home to Spain’s largest freshwater lagoon, it’s a biodiversity hotspot sheltering hundreds of bird species, including flamingos that spend the winter enveloped in its warm embrace.

Stepping onto a small boat to scoot around the lagoon’s calm waters, I learned that the park isn’t just a haven for birdlife. Albufera also provides an important source of income for fishermen who, to this day, inherit the right to harvest its waters from their forebears going back through the generations; in fact, the fisherman’s association was legally recognised as long ago as 1250. The fact that I’d been in the centre of Spain’s third-largest city only moments before reinforced the sense that I might encounter nature, and the tranquillity that it brings, in any corner of Valencia.

Albufera, part of which is given over to rice paddies, is also the birthplace of the city’s most famous culinary creation: paella. Eva explained that, unlike variations made elsewhere, traditional Valencian paella contains no seafood, instead using various local ingredients: bomba rice, chicken, rabbit and seasonal vegetables.

Tucking into my first true Valencian paella at La Marítima restaurant, I couldn’t believe how inaccurate my idea of this dish had been. Without the inclusion of prawns or other shellfish, and lacking the fluorescent glow of turmeric, this paella was much darker in colour than others I’d tried. Made with a generous helping of artichokes – which, I learned, are in season in January – and with saffron and paprika the predominant spices, it was more richly flavoured than any other take I’d sampled before.

Without my noticing, I realised, the way I viewed Valencia had shifted. From admiring a city as an outsider, I felt that I was actively trying it on for size – weighing up what it would be like to live here, and how carefree it must feel.

Everything seems bright in Valencia, its ever-present luminosity not only bathing the city but imbuing its people with an infectious warmth. From chuckles overheard in the street to the clinking of glasses filled to the brim with Agua de València – a potent cocktail of fizz, vodka, gin and, of course, fresh orange juice – this is a city that shines in every sense. And it’s not the superficial gleam of fool’s gold, but one that feels genuine and relatable.

The label of European Green Capital, I realised, tells us nothing new about Valencia. It’s just how the city has always been, providing a blueprint for green living everywhere. As a measure of its success, Valencia made an urban cyclist out of me – and that’s something I never expected to say.