Sina

I’ve lived in the province of Valencia, about an hour south of the city and spent a lot of time travelling around the wider Valencia region – the Comunidad Valenciana, comprising the three provinces of Alicante, Castellón and Valencia in an area about the size of Wales on the east coast – for 11 years now. During this time I’ve travelled to some beautiful locations on every continent, but Valencia…well, the first time I went to the city, I thought, “OMG, I actually LIVE here!” and have never stopped thinking that since, grinning to myself at my enormous luck to have landed here.

Valencia is beautiful. Classical architecture, stunning pale-stone elaborate buildings with balconies bursting with colourful flowers, fountains, boulevards, winding side-streets, and a huge botanical garden running right through the city in what used to be the Túria river before the 1957 flood when this was diverted. Designer shops, department stores, chain stores, street-vendors selling horchata (tiger-nut ‘juice’ with sugar with the consistency of milkshake) and fartones (lightly-iced finger-buns to dip in the latter), pavement cafés, fast food chains and the most elegant and up-market restaurants where the dishes, a blend of local ingredients and recipes with an avant-garde twist, are a work of art, the pride of the establishment and will set you back far less money than you thought they would. So, let’s discovr it together.