Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences)

- El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe, L'Hemisfèric, El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, L'Oceanogràfic, L'Àgora, L'Umbracle, El Pont de l'Assut de l'Or, Torre de Francia, Centro Commercial El Saler

Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences), is an entertainment-based cultural and architectural complex that was developed in the late 1990s and 2000s, situated to the East of the city centre. The futuristic buildings are designed by the world famous Valencian architects Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, and are surrounded by pools. It is as important to visit as the historical city centre, and you can easily get here by bus. At City of Arts and Sciences you find a futuristic atmosphere with exciting buildings in imanative shapes, most of them with white facades, blue water pounds, palm trees, bridges and sculptures, surrounded by some of Valencia's tallest highrises, busy roads, shopping malls and department stores. The whole area is centered around 8 structures:

El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe, an interactive science museum with impressive architecture that resembles the skeleton of a whale and covers 40,000 m². This is the most massive of the structures and is situated in the center of the science area, 220m long, 80m wide and 55 m high. It opened in 2000 and was designed by Calatrava. It is surrounded by part of the Turia Gardens. Manuel Toharia, a Spanish screen writer and TV personality, is the director of the museum. We visited the museum, part of a combined ticket. In the museum you find interactive experiments, models of rockets and other space structures, two airplanes, an air balloon, gravity experiments, new born chickens, an ant colony, a Marvel exhibtion and massive bright open public areas among many other things. Parts of it were a bit noisy due to large school classes visiting. The museum is so massive that there is a separate page about it.

L'Hemisfèric, a curvy IMAX theatre, was one of the first of the futuristic buildings built on the site (1998). The construction is designed to resemble a giant eye. It is surrounded by a pool, that you pass and then take the escalator down underground, where you enter the Imax theatre, that resembles the iris of the eye. After touring the science area, we watched an IMAX film about butterflies in the evening there.

El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía (Queen Sophia Palace of the Arts), a huge opera house and performing arts center that opened in 2005. The building is designed by Santiago Calatrava in an extremely impressive shape. It is the tallest opera house in the world, with 14 floors above ground and 3 below ground. It opened in 2005, is 80m tall and 230m long. It contains four large rooms: Sala Principal (Main Hall) that seats 1470 people, Aula Magisterial (seats 400 people), Amphitheater and Theater of Camera. It is surrounded by landscape, water and walking areas. Panorama elevators, outdoor terraces and outdoor stairways can be found on the exterior. Plácido Domingo, Christopher Ventris have been among the performers. There have been some incidents after the openings; two floods and the collapse of the main stage caused all performances to be cancelled.

L'Àgora, the latest and tallest building (86m), a blue shell shaped building for concerts, exhibitions and sporting events inaugurated in 2009,

L'Umbracle, a 320m long tropical outdoor garden that features over 100 palm tress, rare plants and trees. It is more or less outdoors, only white arches cover it. Outside there are sculptures by famous artists.

El Pont de l'Assut de l'Or, a very cool 125m high suspension bridge that is the tallest structure in the city.

Pont de Montalivet, a curvy bridge towards the residential areas in the North, that you can walk under between the opera and the science museum.

L'Oceanogràfic, Europe's largest oceanographic aquarium, partly an outdoor park, and partly situated in buildings that have shapes of water lilies, designed by Félix Candela. It opened in 2003 and covers a surface of 110 000 m², features 42 million liters of water and 45 000 animals of 500 species. Each building represents different aquatic environments such as the Mediterranean, Wetlands, Temperate and Tropical Seas, Oceans, the Antarctic, the Arctic, Islands and the Red Sea. Over 500 different species, including dolphins, belugas, sawfish, jellyfish, starfish, sea urchins, walruses, seals, penguins, sea lions, turtles, sharks and rays can be found. There is also an avarium with rare wetland birds. We visited the aquarium the last day, before taking the train back to Alicante. It is very extensive and interesting, and it features an underwater tunnel, a small room that is under water and several restaurants. There is a separate page about L'Oceanogràfic.

The buildings in the area are beautifully illuminated at night. Click here to look at City of Arts and Science at night and sunset.