Here’s yet another piece of surprising architecture from Spain – Valencia’s famous Ciudad de las Artes y Las Ciencias, the City of Arts and Sciences. Seriously, how many cool buildings can one country have? When it comes to Spain, the answer is a LOT! Just check this bad boy out:

Valencia-City-of-Arts-and-Sciences-Spain

This building is such an iconic symbol of Valencia that before I went, it was pretty much the only thing I recognized as specifically being from Valencia. It’s surrounded by water, and that’s because it’s built on an old riverbed. Today, they’ve changed the riverbed into a sunken park. You can’t see the water in my photo except for in the reflection in the windows, but it washes the whole complex in a pretty teal color.

The City of Arts and Sciences has everything from a planetarium to a movie theater to a performing arts center. There are lots of museums and fun things to look at. The building itself is pretty fun to look at, actually. This particular part is shaped to look like a whale skeleton.

Even though it’s such an iconic building for Valencia, the City of Arts and Sciences has actually been really controversial. It cost some serious cash to build, and it wasn’t even finished by its inauguration day, so some people see it as a very tangible reminder of mismanaged funds.

Controversy aside, I bet you could spend an entire day going around this complex – there are five different sections. Unfortunately, I only had a couple of hours but it was still great to look at such a weird, fascinating building.

I’ll have more on Valencia soon with posts about Las Fallas and more! I didn’t get to try their famous paella when I was there, but I’m hoping I’ll get to go back to taste it for myself soon. I’ve had paella in other places in Spain, of course, though never in the place where it comes from.

Besos!

-Jess