On our second day in Valencia, we explored the Old City, in search of Europe’s biggest produce market, world-class street art, a Medieval city gate and the world’s once-second narrowest building.
Mercado Central has more than 1,200 stalls and eateries offering fresh fruits and veggies, along with meat, cheese, spices, nuts and seafood.
El Carmen, a once-rundown neighborhood on the Old City’s north side, has a reputation for street art and quirky nightlife. Vivid imagery and poignant messaging covered nearly every wall, fence, bridge and underpass in and around the neighborhood.
The Serranos Towers sits on the edge of the Jardin del Turia and served as one of 12 gates that protected the Christian City of Valencia during its Golden Age in the 15th and 16th centuries.
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La Estrecha – which translates as Narrow One. Located eight minutes by foot from the towers, La Estrecha was Europe’s narrowest building at a mere 42 inches wide, the exact width of my front door and trim.
Situated in the Plaza de Lope de Vega, the building was built as a home with a spiral staircase in the center. Each floor was a single room. The ground floor came to serve as a family-owned jewelry shop, according to Food and Travel. The upper floors were rented to prostitutes and others for extramarital affairs.
In the 1980s, an inner wall was torn down, and the building is now attached to an adjacent one. Beneath “La Estrecha,” the address header now also adds the name of the hat store next door: “de Sombreros Albero.”
