Valencia, Spain’s third-largest city, for ages languished in the long shadows cast by Madrid, Spain’s political capital, and Barcelona, the country’s cultural and economic powerhouse. No longer. Stunning public buildings have changed the city’s skyline – Sir Norman Foster’s Palacio de Congresos, David Chipperfield’s award-winning Veles i Vents structure beside the inner port, and, on the grandest scale of all, the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencas, designed in the main by Santiago Calatrava, local boy made good.

An increasingly popular short-break venue, Valencia is where paella first simmered over a wood fire. It’s a vibrant, friendly, mildly chaotic place with two outstanding fine-arts museums, an accessible old quarter, Europe’s newest cultural and scientific complex – and one of Spain’s most exciting nightlife scenes.