Valencia: A New Golden Age

The Palau de les Arts in Valencia

While many Spanish cities have spent the past decade catching up on the cultural front, Valencia, on Spain's eastern coast, never had to reinvent itself. Founded by the Romans in 138 B.C., it was blessed with sunshine and fertile soil, and today it still enjoys the rich legacy of the Moors, who arrived seven centuries later, bringing mulberry trees (the silkworms love them) and a taste for exquisite crafts. During Valencia's golden age, from the 14th to the 17th centuries, it was rivaled in the Mediterranean only by Venice and Genoa.

Centuries later, Valencia remains in the cultural forefront. Take contemporary art: before there was Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum or Barcelona's Museu d'Art Contemporani, Valencia had the Institut Valencia d'Art Modern (118 Guillem de Castro; 011-34-96-386-3000), inaugurated in 1989 and still one of the most respected Spanish museums. IVAM has anchored the revitalization of El Carmen--a thriving neighborhood of galleries, cafés and tapas bars—and its restaurant has earned a Michelin star.

But IVAM can't be the only game in a town that counts Santiago Calatrava among its native sons. Over the past ten years, his gleaming white architectural marvels have been piling up in Valencia, forming a constellation of museums and pavilions known as the City of Arts and Sciences; it includes an interactive science museum and the famous complex l'Oceanogràfic, a sprawling outdoor aquarium designed by Félix Candela. The latest addition: the mosaic-covered, spaceship-like Palau de les Arts (1 Autopista del Saler; 011-34-96-316-3737).

In light of these cultural leaps, it was just a matter of time before the world took notice. The biggest boost came when Valencia was chosen to host the 32nd America's Cup Match, which will kick off in June. This being Spain, the Port America's Cup, built for the event, at times focuses more on the sangria-fueled scene than on sails and wind and the like. Bianco (011-34-96-344-8944), a pub in the new David Chipperfield-designed Veles e Vents building, plans to broadcast the high-seas action. For more relaxed surroundings, head to perennial favorite Seu Xerea (4 Calle Conde de Almodóvar; 011-34-96-392-4000), which serves some of Spain's most inventive Mediterranean-fusion cuisine, like flaky spanakopita of Stilton and pine nuts.

While foreign ships in the harbor may be nothing novel around here, luxury hotels are. Visitors can now choose between the sixty-six-room Hospes Palau de la Mar (14 Navarro Reverter; 011-34-96-316-2884; hospes.es), in a former 19th-century palace, and the waterfront Hotel Las Arenas (22–24 Calle Eugenia Viñes; 011-34-96-312-0600; h-santos.es), where they can watch the regatta's zigzagging sails from many of its rooms.

Fortunately, the emphasis on the coast has not diminished the old city's charms. For a glimpse of luxury textiles, pop into couturier Enrique Lodares (6 Marqués de Dos Aguas; 011-34-96-394-3790), where tailored clothing reveals Valencia's predilection for sumptuous silks, brocades and even furs. Parents wishing to dress their children like Goya's littlest grandees should drop by La Casita de Penélope (54 Gran Vía Marqués de Turia; 011-34-96-374-0093) for taffeta and linen outfits. And you can't miss the González Martí National Ceramics and Sumptuary Arts Museum (2 Poeta Querol; 011-34-96-351- 6392), with its cake-frosting alabaster-and-stucco façade. Inside, displays of pottery span 2,000 years, from Roman amphorae to Picasso's fanciful vessels that turn workaday water pitchers into curvy goddesses. In Valencia such artistic license seems right at home.