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Valencia: the City of Arts and Sciences

The main reason to visit Valencia was mainly because of this complex. I have been intrigued by the modern designs of the City of Arts and Sciences complex. The complex has seven modern design buildings with different functionality but mainly for entertainment, cultural and science. The buildings and overall concepts of the complex were designed by notable Spanish architects Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela.

City of Arts and Sciences

City of Arts and Sciences

I love taking the pictures of the buildings in this complex. The complex itself is very huge. We spent a whole day touring around the complex.

L’Hemisfèric.  My favorite building. Unfortunately I was unable to visit inside of this building, it was closed during our visit. But enjoying its architecture was a delight. I could not stop admiring it. The building is aimed for IMAX theater and planetarium. On my previous post, I have shown a picture of L’Hemisferic as The Eye of Knowledge. Calatrava and Candela were brilliantly designing the building that its reflection on the water would turn to lookalike an eye.

 

Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe. It has a long name, basically it is a science museum and we managed to look around this museum to see its collection. It has a lot of interesting displays and maybe it is best to visit this place with children. I am sure they will enjoy it.

 

Assut de l’Or Bridge. It is a bridge that connected the south part of the city and Minorca street. The design reminds me of Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam, a mini Erasmus Bridge.

 

L’Oceanogràfic. It is a smaller complex of open-air oceanographic park. The design of the building was inspired by the form of water lily. It has several number of large aquariums that each representing aquatic environments in the world, birds area, and area for dolphins show. It also has Mola-Mola fish in its aquarium. I wanted to see Mola-Mola when I was diving in Bali and there he was, unexpectedly seen in Valencia.

 

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia. Opera house and cultural center in Valencia. It has four auditoriums for each can be used for musical and theater performances. It has a nice restaurant with open terrace and serve snacks. The roof was bit rusty though, hopefully it will be renovated. Amazing design and I hope it will last for the the next generations.

 

L’Umbracle. It is a garden full of indigenous plants to Valencia. There is a long path where people can walk inside to enjoy the beauty of the garden and also sculptures.

 

L’Àgora. This building has capacity for 6000 people and it is usually used for exhibitions and sports tournaments. Lovely building with nice surrounding. It is located next to the Oceanographic park.

 

Practical Information

Official website of the City of Arts and Sciences

Its location is not a walking distance from the city center and it is not closed by to metro-subway station either. If you stay at the city center of Valencia, it is better to take buses than subway to the City of Arts and Sciences.

The complex around the complex is quite nice for walking activity, and if you walk further, you can reach BioParc, a zoological park! I checked in the google maps and the route is around 7 kilometers through the park.

You can buy the ticket online but if you visit Valencia on low season, I suggest to buy the tickets on the City of Arts and Sciences directly. Except on Saturday and Sunday, during the weekdays the complex was not too crowded.

My Travel Monkey

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