My Escapes Spain Valencia Frenetic Valencian Escape! The Gardens of the Former Túria Riverbed

The Gardens of the Former Túria Riverbed

Valencians were ingenious! After diverting the wide River Túria, they transformed the former riverbed into a vast green area with parks, gardens, soccer fields and much more!

A rather unusual attraction, a wonderful green retreat area and a great achievement of engineers!

The Jardín Túria (Jardí Túria) is the lung of the city. What can be more efficient than a thick stretch of green area cutting across the city?

On Valencia's maps you'll see a thick green area crossing the central area (as below). This is what I'm talking about!

The Túria Gardens on the map:

It is also a great referential area (I avoided saying "point", because it's a vast area, after all). In case you come across it, you can easily deduct where you are.

One thing I did several times was to walk along it or, inside it. It's time consuming, but the experience is worth it. The Túria Gardens is diverse within itself.

I wouldn't encourage anyone to divert River Thames, River Danube, River Hudson, River Tiber... to transform the main watery arteries of London, Budapest, Vienna, New York, Rome and potentially other cities into vast green parks...

Anyway, the idea is exotic enough for me to love it, but some rivers are better left alone. I couldn't imagine London, Budapest or Rome look better without their famous rivers!

Valencia's Túria bank looks frenetically exotic. Beautiful vast long green area with parks, palm trees, lakes, sports centers.

Bridges span across the Túria... There are 14 of them. Many of them constitute attractions (by themselves). Some are heavy modern bridges, others ancient rocky ones.

From the 14 bridges crossing River Túria's former riverbed, some date back to the 14th century, others are hypermodern 21st century pieces of infrastructure.

The Puente de la Mar was rebuilt after a major flood in 1591 - until then a small wooden bridge stood in its place. The bridge expands across a perfectly circular-shaped artificial lake below...

If you get to the southern parts of the former Túria riverbed, then you will encounter the hypermodern cultural and scientific attraction called: City of Arts and Sciences.

Hey, but what happened to the real River Túria?

It now flows on the southern part of Valencia. Though, part of its water is still used for irrigating the green park area created in the former river bed.

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