Green with envy: Why communities worldwide long to be like environmentally friendly Valencia

The beauty of working remotely from her sunny terrace in Spain’s third-biggest city isn’t lost on Ciara, the founder and managing director of Freedom Travel and Solo Travel.

“I consider myself the luckiest girl in the world,” she says. “I can just pack some clothes and my laptop and nip to and fro. I have to pinch myself sometimes – it’s like living a dream.”

With 12 return flights a week to Valencia from Ireland – six from Dublin, four from Cork and two from Belfast – Ciara can hop on a plane at the drop of a sombrero if she’s needed back in the office.

However, for the foreseeable future she’s more than happy to spend a few weeks at a time in this year’s European Green Capital, where Malvarrosa beach is a 10-minute walk from her house.

Close, too, is the Turia Garden, a 9km traffic-free park that occupies the former bed of the diverted Turia river and is the envy of city-dwellers worldwide.

When local authorities from Alaska to Adelaide look for ways to improve life for their citizens, they send delegations to Valencia to see what can be achieved, and they leave mightily impressed.

On Sundays, Ciara might cycle the 10km to El Palmar, the little town at the heart of Albufera Natural Park, where the freshwater lake is the biggest in Spain at 27 square kilometres, yet only 1.5 metres deep.

All of the dozen or so restaurants in El Palmar take pride in serving authentic paella, which originates there and contains five simple ingredients – rice, chicken, rabbit, green beans and snails.

The dish dates from the 18th century and was the main meal of the day back then for the families of eel fishermen and those who worked in the rice fields that are irrigated by the lake and cover 7,400 acres – nearly three times the size of Dublin Airport.

While the photogenic seafood and shellfish paella served throughout the rest of Spain is a tasty TikTok and Instagram star, born-and-bred Valencians look on it with scorn, dismissing it as “arroz con cosas” – “rice with stuff”.

El Palmar is a popular bus excursion from the city, with visitors boarding small passenger boats for a glide along the channels that are lined by tall rushes and lead to the lake, which is separated from the sea by a massive sandbar.

The natural park is home to more than 300 resident and migratory bird species, including flamingos. While pretty, they’ve become a bit of a pest by trampling newly sown rice fields.

As the pink-plumaged waders are protected, there’s little the farmers can do but fire blank shotgun cartridges into the air to scare them off while seeking compensation from the local government for their losses.

Birds of a different colour of feather flock together in the city centre, where squadrons of squawking green monk parakeets flit between the orange trees.

Unlike other monks, this lot – the descendants of released or escaped pets – have never heard of a vow of silence and keep up a cacophony from dawn to dusk that amuses tourists but drives night-shift workers nuts when they’re trying to sleep.

There are 10,000 orange trees in Valencia’s streets, squares and parks, and they produce 400 tonnes of fruit every year, but don’t be tempted to try one that has fallen to the ground – they’re bitter and good only for marmalade and fertiliser.

In late January, children delight in watching tractors with special attachments shaking the tree trunks, which causes the fully ripe oranges to drop into huge upside-down umbrella contraptions below.

This not only keeps the streets free of a mushy mess, it greatly reduces the number or personal injury claims from people who come a cropper by slipping and breaking their wrists.

The sweet oranges for which the city is famed are grown on the outskirts, and it’s from these that the freshly squeezed juice that goes in to agua de Valencia is made.

As well as the juice, the city’s favourite fruity concoction with a kick contains vodka, gin, cava and sugar, and the best by far is served in Cafe de Las Horas, in a side street off Plaza de La Virgen in the old town.

Owned and run by long-time Valencia resident Marc Insanally, from English-speaking Guyana on the north coast of South America, it’s Valencia’s most eye-poppingly ornate bar and Ciara’s favourite spot to take visitors from home.

“When I was still new in town, a Spanish friend introduced me to Cafe de Las Horas one night and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was, all red velvet drapes and chandeliers and artworks on the walls and a starry sky painted on the ceiling.

“We were sitting chatting with Marc – he’s an absolute dote – and the bar was packed, but it went all quiet when this young guy stood up and started to sing an aria from Carmen. What a voice – by the time he finished, I was in tears.

“Another night, a classical guitarist began playing and blew everybody away. More tears! You just never know what’s going to happen in there. I can’t wait to show the place to my team in Celbridge when they come over for our Christmas party.”

Ciara has already booked a couple of tables to avoid the long queue that starts forming outside in the early evening, such is Las Horas’ popularity.

“I think we’ve become a victim of our own success,” says Marc. “It’s a bit like that line from Jaws – we’re going to need a bigger bar.”

While agua de Valencia is the city’s cocktail of choice, horchata is the sweet, non-alcoholic drink on which every local was weaned.

Available in most cafes and from street carts in the old town, this milky-white and protein-rich beverage is made from ground tigernuts and served ice-cold with a long, sugar-coated sponge cake finger for dipping.

Horchata is the perfect pick-me-up when energy levels start to sap while walking or cycling around in the sunshine – Valencia gets 300 blue-sky days a year and mid-afternoon temperatures reach 30C-plus in July and August.

There are plenty of places of interest in which to escape the heat, though.

In the 13th-century parish church of St Nicholas, visitors risk cricking their necks while marvelling at the baroque fresco on the ceiling, which depicts the life of the saint and has earned comparisons with the Sistine Chapel.

Nearby, in one of the chapels of the Cathedral-Basilica of the Assumption, which also dates from the 13th century, a chalice reputed to be the Holy Grail has been used during masses celebrated there by Popes Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

The Hortensia Herrero Art Centre in the renovated 17th-century Valeriola Palace is home to more than 100 contemporary works by four dozen world-renowned artists, including David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein and Dublin-born Sean Scully.

This is the private collection of billionaire philanthropist Herrero, the vice-president of supermarkets chain Mercadona, which grew from a butcher’s shop that opened in Valencia in 1977 and now operates 1,600 stores all over Spain and Portugal.

Among the art on view is teamLab’s ‘The World of Irreversible Change’ (2022), a remarkable interactive digital installation depicting everyday life a long time ago in an unidentified Oriental city.

The wall-mounted work is populated by hundreds of animated figures going peacefully about their business, but wave a hand in front of a small group and they begin arguing for a few seconds.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Touch the figures and they start knocking lumps out of each other. Keep touching (which is frowned upon) and the fighting will spread, a lengthy war will break out, the city will burn down and no one will be left alive.

That installation alone is worth every cent of the €9 entrance fee, but I would gladly pay €90 to watch the security staff having nervous breakdowns trying to prevent a visiting class of junior infants from poking the little people on the screens.

But those three must-sees are indoor attractions.

Valencians love to live their lives outdoors (there are 200km of cycle paths), and they take climate awareness seriously, down to the smallest detail – when offered a business card, they snap a quick photo of it and hand it back, to reduce waste.

Most street lighting is solar-powered, and many kerbside lampposts also serve as electric vehicle charging points. There’s even a catchy song about what goes in to which coloured bin that children learn in pre-school and then teach to their parents.

Far from being a Johnny-come-lately, Valencia has for decades been a front-runner in promoting a clean and healthy environment, but those eco-conscious credentials were born out of catastrophe.

On October 14, 1957, the Turia, which flowed through the centre to the sea, burst its banks after three days of torrential rain, leaving 75pc of the city under water (five metres deep in some areas), destroying 6,000 homes and killing at least 80 people.

In 1964, work began on a massive project to divert the river around the western outskirts, and it was completed nine years later.

The authorities drew up plans to turn the dry riverbed into a motorway system, but outraged citizens protested under the rallying cry “We want green!” and people power eventually won the day.

It was a long and hard-fought battle, but by the end of the 1970s, legislation to create a park was passed and Turia Garden opened to a jubilant public in 1986. They’ve been making full use of it – and making other cities jealous – ever since.

Plan your trip

Tom was a guest of Visit Valencia. He flew from Dublin with Ryanair (ryanair.com) and stayed at the SH Colon hotel (holtelcolonvalencia.com) in the city centre, where rooms are available from €185 a night B&B for two people sharing.

For further information, see visitvalencia.com and spain.info