DAY 4: THE MERCADO CENTRAL

SHOPPING WITH THE LOCALS

MORNING

Start your last day in Valencia like the locals do: with an icy horchata, a kind of nutty milkshake. Pretty, tiled HORCHATERÍA SANTA CATALINA, on the plaza of the same name, just off the bottom of central Plaza de la Reina, is the place to go, and a side of deep-fried, sugar-coated churros should help set you all up for the day.

With several airlines running afternoon and evening flights back to the UK, you’ll probably have time to explore a bit more of Valencia. Heading left out of the Horchatería Santa Catalina, make a stop in Plaza Lope de Vega, the little square at the end of the street, to admire ESTRECHA, reputedly the narrowest house in Europe (it’s just 107cm wide). From the plaza, walking down narrow Calle del Trench will lead you out diagonally opposite Valencia’s magnificent MERCADO CENTRAL [open from 7.30am to 3pm, closed on Sundays], the largest covered market in Europe. It’s also one of its most beautiful, with a sunlit interior of vaulted wrought-iron beams, stained-glass windows and ceramic motifs – the hallmarks of the early 20th-century Modernista style of architecture that Valencia is famous for. There are nearly 300 stalls here, selling hanging hams and ox tongues, cheeses and spices, vegetables from the fertile fields surrounding the city and a bounty of seafood (including cuttlefish, sea urchins and odd-looking goose barnacles) pulled from the Med that morning. There’s even a stall that sells snails (caracoles), where the produce is constantly trying to escape from their netted bags. Pick up some turrón, a kind of chewy almond nougat, for the flight home – from the Mercado Central, it’s 10 minutes’ walk to Àngel Guimerà Station, on the western edge of the Old Town, for the 20-minute metro to Valencia Airport.

TOP TIP If you’re not flying out until the evening, then you could spend your extra time in Valencia looking round the 15th-century LA LONJA DE LA SEDA [open from 10am to 7pm, until 2pm on Sundays | €2, under-18s €1, under 7-s free; free on Sundays; audio guide €3], the city’s old Silk Exchange that is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. There’s not a huge amount for children to see here, although they should be impressed by the building’s Sala de Contratación (Hall of Commerce), whose slender columns spiral 40ft from the marble floor to merge into its rib-vaulted ceiling.

THE LIJOMA LOWDOWN

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