In the fifteenth century Valencia was one of the richest cities in the Mediterranean, and it wrote that wealth in stone: a Gothic exchange where merchants closed deals beneath stone palm trees. Its cathedral keeps an agate cup it venerates as the Holy Grail, and its rice fields gave birth to a dish with rules of its own. Twelve stops between the great gate of the city wall, the district that grew among convents and Moorish walls, the court that judges water every Thursday, the chapel of the chalice, the bell tower that watched over the farmland, the facade of the Lonja, its hall of columns, the modernist market, the silk guild, the suburb where the conquering king made camp, the futuristic city born of a flood and the lagoon where paella rice grows. Approximate audio duration: 22 minutes.
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Valencia: la Lonja de los mercaderes, el cáliz que dicen Grial y la paella con reglas
En el siglo XV, Valencia fue una de las ciudades más ricas del Mediterráneo, y lo dejó escrito en piedra: una lonja gótica donde los mercaderes cerraban tratos bajo palmeras de piedra. Su catedral guarda una copa de ágata que venera como el Santo Grial, y sus campos de arroz dieron origen a un plato con reglas propias. Doce paradas entre la gran puerta de la muralla, el barrio que creció entre conventos y muros árabes, el tribunal que juzga el agua cada jueves, la capilla del cáliz, el campanario que vigilaba la huerta, la fachada de la Lonja, su salón de columnas, el mercado modernista, el gremio de la seda, el arrabal donde acampó el rey conquistador, la ciudad futurista nacida de una inundación y la laguna donde crece el arroz de la paella. Duración aproximada de audio: 22 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~22 min of audio · 24.65 km on foot (~6 h 10 min walking) · about 6 h 45 min in total
You are standing before the Serranos Towers, two massive stone towers joined by a great arch. Behind you, where there are now gardens and bridges over no water, the river Turia used to flow.
This was the main gate of Valencia's Christian wall. The wall was begun in 1356, and the gate was built between 1392 and 1398 under the master builder Pere Balaguer. Kings and ambassadors arriving from the north entered here.
Notice that on the city side the towers are open, with no wall. That was deliberate: if an enemy captured them, he could not use them as a stronghold against the people of Valencia.…
2
The District Between Two Walls
You are in the Carmen district, in front of the Portal de Valldigna, a narrow, low arch between the houses. The streets around it are tight and crooked, and their walls are covered in graffiti.
This arch was opened in Valencia's Moorish wall, built in the eleventh century. The Muslim city, Balansiya, was smaller than the Christian one. After the conquest in 1238, the suburbs left outside it gradually filled with convents, orchards and workshops.
One of those convents, that of the Carmelites, gave the district its name. So the Carmen ended up between two walls: the old Moorish wall on the ins…
3
The Court That Judges Water
You are in the Plaza de la Virgen. This was the forum of Valentia, the city the Romans founded in 138 BC. In front of you is a Gothic portal of the cathedral, crowded with statues: the Apostles' Door.
Every Thursday at noon, in front of that door, the Water Tribunal meets. Eight men in black smocks sit in armchairs, out in the street, and settle irrigation disputes between the farmers of the huerta, the market gardens around the city.
Each of them represents one of the great canals that draw water from the Turia. If a farmer took more water than his share, or failed to clean his stretch of c…
4
The Cup Valencia Calls the Grail
You are in the Chapel of the Holy Chalice, a square Gothic room with a star vault. It was the cathedral's old chapter house, built in the fourteenth century. At the far end, behind an alabaster altarpiece, is the cup.
Take a good look. The upper part is a bowl of reddish agate, smooth and plain. The handles, the gold foot and the precious stones were added in the Middle Ages.
The cathedral venerates it as the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper. According to tradition it travelled from Jerusalem to Rome and then to Hispania. What is documented is that in the fourteenth century it was in the mo…
5
The Bell Tower That Watched Over the Huerta
You are in the Plaza de la Reina. In front of you is the cathedral's Baroque facade, curved like a folding screen, and beside it an eight-sided Gothic tower: the Miguelete, or Micalet, as the Valencians call it.
The cathedral was begun in 1262 on the site of the great mosque of the Muslim city. King James I had conquered Valencia in 1238, and almost all the mosques were turned into churches.
Construction of the tower began in 1381 and was finished early in the fifteenth century. It is about fifty metres high, and to reach the top you climb a spiral staircase of more than two hundred steps. I…
6
A Castle for Merchants
You are in the Plaza del Mercado, in front of the Lonja. It looks like a castle: stone walls, a square tower and battlements on top. But it was not built for war. It was built for business.
At the end of the fifteenth century Valencia was one of the most populous and wealthy cities in the Crown of Aragon. Its merchants sold cloth, rice, sugar, ceramics and silk, and bought in Italy, North Africa and the East. They needed a building worthy of that wealth.
Work began in 1482 under the master builder Pere Compte, and the great trading hall was finished in 1498. The rest of the complex was compl…
7
Stone Palm Trees and a Warning
You are in the Trading Hall, also known as the Hall of Columns. See how the columns twist around themselves like wrung ropes and, at the top, open into ribs like palm trees holding up the roof.
The vaults are more than seventeen metres high. Pere Compte achieved a huge, bright hall with very few supports, so that merchants could move about, display goods and close deals without obstruction.
Now look for the Latin inscription that runs around the walls in a high band. It is a warning to traders. Roughly, it says that good business is the kind that does not deceive with the tongue, keeps the o…
8
The Market of the Parrot
You are in front of the Central Market, a huge building of iron, glass and ceramics crowned with domes. It was designed by the architects Alejandro Soler March and Francisco Guardia, in the modernista style. Work began in 1914 and the market opened in 1928.
This square had been Valencia's market since the Middle Ages. The stalls used to stand in the open air. The new building covered some eight thousand square metres and became one of the largest covered markets in Europe.
Look at the highest dome. On top is a weather vane in the shape of a parrot, which the Valencians call the cotorra del m…
9
The Silk Weavers' Guild
You are on Calle del Hospital, in front of the College of the Major Art of Silk. It is a building of medieval origin that for centuries housed the guild of Valencia's silk weavers. Today it is a museum.
Silk came to Valencia with the Muslims, who brought the mulberry tree and the silkworm. After the Christian conquest, production carried on and kept growing. By the second half of the fifteenth century the weavers of velvet and silk had organised themselves into a guild of their own.
In 1686 King Charles II granted the guild the title of College of the Major Art of Silk. It was a way of recog…
10
Where the Conquering King Made Camp
You are in Ruzafa, in front of its brightly coloured market. Around you are streets laid out in a grid, early twentieth-century buildings, cafés and galleries. It is one of Valencia's most fashionable districts.
The name comes from Arabic. In Muslim times this was a country estate with gardens outside the city, named after Rusafa, a palace of the Umayyad caliphs in Syria. The Umayyads who ruled al-Andalus reused that name for several of their estates.
In 1238 King James I of Aragon laid siege to Valencia and set up his camp here, in Ruzafa. The siege lasted months. At the end of September th…
11
The City Born of a Flood
You are at the City of Arts and Sciences. In front of you a white building shaped like an eye is reflected in a pool. It is L'Hemisfèric, and its eyelid of glass and metal opens and closes.
You are actually standing in the old bed of the river Turia. On 14 October 1957 a great flood swept through Valencia and left dozens dead. After the disaster the government approved the Plan Sur: to divert the river into a new channel south of the city.
The old bed was left empty, cutting across Valencia from end to end. In the 1970s a motorway was planned along it. Residents mobilised behind a slogan, th…
12
The Lagoon Where Paella Is Born
You are in El Palmar, a small fishing village ringed by canals in the middle of the Albufera. Around you stretch the lagoon, the reeds and the rice fields, flooded, green or golden depending on the season.
The name comes from the Arabic al-buhayra, meaning the little sea. It is a freshwater lagoon separated from the Mediterranean by a strip of sand and pines, the Devesa. It has been a nature park since 1986.
Rice came to this land with the Muslims, and here it found what it needed: still water, heat and flat ground. Over the centuries fields were won from the lagoon to plant it. Today Valenc…
How long does the "Valencia: the Merchants' Exchange, the Cup Called the Grail and the Paella with Rules" audio tour take?
It has about 22 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 24.65 km walking route (~6 h 10 min on foot). Plan roughly 6 h 45 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Gate That Outlived the Wall" (coordinates 39.4792, -0.376). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Valencia and pick "Valencia: the Merchants' Exchange, the Cup Called the Grail and the Paella with Rules". No account required to start.
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No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian
