When it comes to visitors, Barcelona has long suffered from too much of a good thing. However, with the conversation around tourism intensifying of late and a recent rise in the daily tourist tax, it’s giving other Spanish cities a moment in the spotlight. Case in point, it’s southerly neighbor: Valencia. In stark contrast to the Catalan capital, Spain’s third city is calling out for visitors after the devastating floods of last October deterred travelers, despite the center itself being left unscathed.

Simultaneously, this unhurried beachside city is one on the up, hot on the heels of being named both World Design Capital and Europe’s Green Capital in recent years. A spree of recent design-led hotel openings in the city, a new landmark contemporary art center and a wave of creatives reviving the old fishing district of El Cabanyal all point to Valencia’s renaissance—and now, before the crowds come, is the time to make a trip.

Where to Stay

A bedroom at La Novieta hotel.

Photo: Leo Fox

A relative hotel desert until recent years, a crop of new addresses are cementing Valencia’s resurgence as a travel destination. On the edge of Ruzafa, Valencia’s most bohemian neighborhood lined with vintage stores and sprawling street-side terraces, French couple Bertrand Boullay and Fabien Peronnet have transformed a typical 1924 house of the Modernisme style, the Catalan take on Art Nouveau, into La Novieta. Originally bought as a private house, the four-bed property has been painstakingly restored, rescuing the hydraulic floor tiles and beamed ceilings and then filled with a beautiful collection of antique and vintage sourced pieces.