Central Market

Behind a great facade of iron, glass, and coloured tile, a vast hall opens up, filled under its high domes with hundreds of stalls of fruit, fish, meat, cheese, and spice, loud with trade and bright with colour. This is the Central Market of Valencia, one of the largest and most beautiful fresh-food markets in Europe.

The market hall was built in the early twentieth century in the ornate Modernista style, the local cousin of art nouveau, all curving ironwork, stained glass, and ceramic decoration, so the building is as much a draw as the food inside it.

Beneath its domes and skylights spread hundreds of stalls, a working market where the people of Valencia have shopped for generations, piled with the produce of one of the most fertile regions in the country.

The range is extraordinary: mountains of oranges and vegetables, hanging hams, fresh fish on ice, cheeses, olives, spices, and the rice and beans that go into the region's famous paella, which was born in the surrounding countryside.

It is a feast for the senses as much as a place to shop, the colour, the smell, the calls of the sellers, and the crowds of locals and visitors all part of the experience, best enjoyed with a slow wander rather than a quick look.

Among the stalls are bars and counters where you can eat on the spot, sampling local hams, cheeses, and seafood with a glass of wine, so the market doubles as one of the best places in the city for a casual meal.

The building stands beside one of the city's other great monuments, the old silk exchange, a masterpiece of Gothic civil architecture, so the two can easily be seen together in the heart of the old town.

The market is a working, everyday place, busiest in the morning when the produce is freshest and the locals shop, and quieter later in the day, so timing your visit shapes what you see.

The Modernista detail rewards looking up: the ironwork, the domes, the stained glass, and the ceramic weathervane on top are all part of a building made to glorify the simple business of buying and selling food.

For a visitor, the market is a window into how Valencia eats and lives, far more than a tourist sight, and a reminder that the region's food culture, above all its rice and oranges, is one of its great glories.

A few practical notes. The market is free to enter and busiest on weekday mornings; bring a little cash, come hungry, and consider eating at one of the bars inside. It closes by mid-afternoon and on Sundays, so come earlier in the day.

Wander beneath the domes among the piled oranges and the hanging hams, then perch at a counter for a plate of something local, and the abundance of the Valencian table is laid out around you. When you step back out into the old town, the silk exchange waits next door to carry the history on.