Valencia was founded as Valentia Edetanorum in 138 BC, refounded by Moorish Balansiya, and reconquered by Jaume I in 1238. Its Gothic silk exchange, medieval towers and Civil War shelters make the layers walkable in three days.
Glass-roofed dig exposing 2,100 years of stratigraphy: the Roman forum and baths of Valentia (138 BC), a Visigothic cathedral apse, and the Moorish alcàsser. Open Tue–Sat 10:00–19:00, Sun 10:00–14:00; free on Sundays.
Built from 1262 on the site of the Great Mosque, mixing Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque. The Chapel of the Holy Grail holds a 1st-century BC agate cup that scholars accept as the historic Santo Cáliz. Open Mon–Sat 10:00–18:30.
The grandest surviving gate of the 14th-century city wall, built 1392–1398 by Pere Balaguer and used as a noble prison from 1586 to 1887. The open-backed design let defenders fire on any enemy who took the gate. Tue–Sat 10:00–19:00.
A rare 14th-century public bathhouse from 1313, built in Moorish tradition under Christian rule with star-pierced vaults over cold, warm and hot rooms. It served the Jewish and Christian quarters until 1959, one of Spain's longest-running baths.
UNESCO-listed silk exchange built 1482–1533, the trading floor of Valencia's golden age when its merchants financed Mediterranean commerce. Twisted helicoidal columns rise like palms; the Consulado del Mar upstairs held Europe's first maritime court.
Every Thursday at noon, eight elected farmers in black smocks judge irrigation disputes of the Turia huerta in spoken Valencian — a court running since roughly 960 AD and recognised by UNESCO as the oldest functioning legal institution in Europe.
Gothic seat of the Valencian parliament begun in 1421, with the Saló de Corts painted with portraits of the medieval estates. Abolished by Felipe V in 1707 after the Battle of Almansa, the Generalitat was only restored in 1982.
Civil War bomb shelter beneath Plaça de Sant Vicent Ferrer, built 1938 when Valencia was the Republican capital and endured 442 air raids. Concrete benches, ventilation shafts and painted instructions survive intact underground.
The 1441–1460 Quart towers still show cannon scars from Napoleon's 1808 bombardment. Behind them the Carmen quarter grew between the Moorish and Christian walls, its lanes following the 11th-century Balansiya street plan.
Housed in the 1850 Water Wheel Pumping Station, the city museum runs a chronological gallery from Roman Valentia through the 1238 conquest, the 1707 loss of the fueros and the 1957 flood, using period objects and reconstructed streets.
Iberian and Roman collections from the Valencian region, including the 4th-century BC lead plaques from Bastida de les Alcusses inscribed in Iberian script, plus mosaics lifted from villas across the Turia plain. Tue–Sun 10:00–20:00.
The fishermen's quarter, a separate town until annexed in 1897, laid out in narrow blocks parallel to the sea and clad in modernista ceramic tile. A 1990s road plan threatened demolition until residents' protests halted it in 2015.