Villas in Valencia

Table of Contents

• At a glance: What should you know about renting a villa in Valencia?
• Villas in Valencia: find your perfect retreat
• Exploring Valencia: our top recommendations
• Activities: What are the top things to do and see in Valencia?

• Space, gardens and pools: Villas in Valencia are concentrated in the leafier outskirts and beach districts, most with a private garden, off-street parking and room for a family or two couples.
• Best areas to stay: La Malvarrosa and El Cabanyal suit beach days, Ciutat Vella puts you among the monuments, and El Saler borders the Albufera wetlands.
• Highly rated stays: Guests score the city's best-reviewed places above 9.7+, praising walkable neighbourhoods, terraces and hosts who share their own paella recommendations.
• Eating like a local: Valencia is the birthplace of paella, and the Mercat Central and seafront rice houses are the easiest way to taste the real thing.
• What to do: The City of Arts and Sciences, the UNESCO-listed Silk Exchange and a cycle along the Turia Garden fill a long weekend comfortably.

Villas in Valencia sit mostly on the city's green edges and beach districts, where plots are large enough for a garden and a pool. Expect detached family houses with terraces near El Saler and Alboraya, and roomier townhouse-style homes in Extramurs. Travelling lighter or on a shorter break? The city also has plenty of apartments in Valencia and a wider choice of holiday rentals in Valencia. Amenities to look out for when comparing options:

• Private swimming pool and shaded terrace
• Enclosed garden with a barbecue and al fresco dining table
• Air conditioning in every bedroom, essential from June to September
• Secure off-street parking for day trips along the coast
• Fast Wi-Fi and a well-equipped kitchen for cooking market produce

Book early for July and August, when the larger garden properties go first.

What are the best areas to stay in Valencia?

For a villa-style stay with outdoor space, look to El Saler and the southern beaches, where plots are biggest and the Albufera is on the doorstep. The table below details regions for specific interests:

What do our guests say?

Guests staying in Valencia consistently rate the city above 9.5+, and the comments repeat the same themes: how walkable the neighbourhoods are, how welcome a terrace is after a long day in the sun, and how generous local hosts are with their own restaurant tips. Detached villas with private gardens are limited within the city boundary, so the highest-scoring stays below are the best-reviewed places across Valencia as a whole.

Here are our top-rated places to stay in Valencia from the past year:

1. Ca La Leni Beach Ii - 10.0+: A four-person home with a balcony in La Malvarrosa, praised for being a two-minute stroll from the sand and the tram.
2. Guestready - El Cabanyal hidden oasis - 9.8+: Sleeps six around a private yard and terrace in El Cabanyal, the old fishermen's quarter beside the beach.
3. Mestalla Flats Rut - 9.7+: A Star Host stay with a sunny balcony near the Mestalla stadium, an easy walk to the Turia Garden.

Valencia sits on Spain's Mediterranean coast where the old Turia riverbed curves through the city, between long beaches and the Albufera lagoon.

🥗Where to eat in Valencia?

According to Google Maps data and reviews, Ricard Camarena Restaurant is the best rated restaurant in Valencia. Below is a table showing the top 5 highly-rated restaurants hand-picked by our travel experts.

⭐Our guests' recommendation: Our guest traveller Charlotte recommends the La Riua in Valencia: a tiled dining room in the old town serving arroz a banda and fideuà the way families here have eaten them for decades.

1. Cycle the Turia Garden
2. Explore the City of Arts and Sciences
3. Shop the Mercat Central
4. Stand inside the Silk Exchange
5. Watch the sunset over the Albufera
6. Spend a day on La Malvarrosa
7. Learn to cook a proper paella

1. Cycle the Turia Garden

   The old river was diverted after the 1957 flood, and the empty bed became a nine-kilometre park that threads right through the city. Hire a bike from the Valenbisi stands and ride from the Bioparc in the west to the City of Arts and Sciences in the east, passing orange groves, football pitches, ponds and the giant Parque Gulliver climbing frame. It is flat, shaded and entirely traffic-free, which makes it the easiest way to get your bearings on a first morning.

2. Explore the City of Arts and Sciences

   Santiago Calatrava's white sculptural complex closes the eastern end of the Turia. Inside are the Oceanògrafic, Europe's largest aquarium, with belugas and a walk-through shark tunnel; the Hemisfèric planetarium and IMAX dome; and the hands-on Science Museum, where the motto is that not touching is forbidden. Allow a full day if you are travelling with children, and book online in advance to skip the queue at the ticket windows in high summer.

3. Shop the Mercat Central

   One of Europe's largest covered food markets fills a soaring art nouveau hall of iron, glass and ceramic tile. Around 400 stalls sell Iberian ham, Manchego, saffron, bomba rice and fish landed that morning. Come before noon, pick up what you need for dinner at your holiday home, then pull up a stool at Central Bar inside for a bocadillo and a small beer while the traders pack up around you.

4. Stand inside the Silk Exchange

   Directly opposite the market, La Lonja de la Seda is a late-15th-century masterpiece of civil Gothic architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The trading hall's spiral columns rise like palm trunks into a vaulted ceiling, and the orange-tree courtyard outside is a cool spot to sit. It takes half an hour to visit, costs very little, and is the single best reminder of how wealthy medieval Valencia became on silk and rope.

5. Watch the sunset over the Albufera

   Twenty minutes south of the centre, the freshwater lagoon of the Albufera Natural Park is ringed by rice paddies and pine woods. Flat-bottomed boats leave from El Palmar in the late afternoon so you can drift out as the water turns copper. It is also the birthplace of paella, so book a table in the village afterwards. Villas on this southern edge of the city put you within easy reach, and the village restaurants serve the original recipe with rabbit and beans.

6. Spend a day on La Malvarrosa

   The city beach is a broad ribbon of golden sand with a long promenade behind it, reachable by tram in under twenty minutes. Sunbeds, volleyball nets and lifeguards make it easy with children, and the row of rice restaurants at the northern end has been feeding beachgoers since the 1890s. Walk south into El Cabanyal, the old fishermen's quarter, where tiled house fronts and small bars have quietly become the most interesting corner of Valencia.

7. Learn to cook a proper paella

   Valencian paella has strict rules: rabbit, chicken, flat green beans, garrofó beans and rice, cooked over orange wood in a wide shallow pan, never stirred. Half-day classes run in the city and out in the rice fields, usually starting with a market shop. It is a genuinely useful souvenir, and the same skill travels well to a kitchen in one of the villas along the Costa Blanca or further inland across the wider Valencia region.