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A Date You Won’t Forget: Starting the Day Together and Ending It by the Sea

15 Dec 2025

Nora Sobol

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We suggest beginning the day, naturally, with a coffee — after all, we want the day to go well and stay in your memory. Choose a spot close to home so you don’t have to travel across the entire city for that cherished cup. 

Afterwards, hand in hand, you’ll head off to greet a day filled with romance. Your first stop: the Turia Gardens, where you can stroll along the dry riverbed of the former Turia River towards the Central Market. During the walk, you can offer your companion a brief historical overview: stretching across nine kilometres, the Turia Gardens only appeared at the end of the 20th century, following a devastating natural disaster — the 1957 flood. The river burst its banks, claiming at least 81 lives.

As you walk through the Turia Gardens towards the market, you’ll inevitably approach one of the 18 bridges crossing it, and we recommend the Assut de l’Or Bridge. It is one of the most iconic engineering masterpieces of our time: a harp-like structure with a striking, blade-shaped pylon designed by the renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, creator of the Bilbao and Lyon airports, as well as Valencia’s Agora — a key element of the City of Arts and Sciences. Here, sheltered in the shade of architectural silhouettes and wrapped in the city’s embrace (or each other’s), you can take analogue photos together — who knows, perhaps these will become the opening pages of your future family album? Or maybe they’ll simply hang on the wall as a reminder of carefree youth.

Once you’ve rested, continue your walk towards the Central Market, where you can fully immerse yourselves in Valencia’s atmosphere. And what reveals a city’s cultural heritage, hidden passions, and people better than its cuisine?

At the market, we suggest taking a paella-cooking masterclass led by a chef — you’ll need to book it a day or two in advance, for example with Seasaffron, and it will cost around €65.

After 2.5 hours, the paella will be ready. It will be lunchtime, and you won’t need to run around searching for a café or restaurant that hasn’t closed for siesta — you’re already here, paella in one hand, a glass of chilled white wine in the other.

After eating, take a short cultural break: just a ten-minute walk away you’ll find the Centre del Carme contemporary art museum, or IVAM. You’ll wander through the streets of the Old Town to reach it, enjoying the atmosphere, architecture and, with luck, the weather (though this is Valencia — luck is on your side more often than not). After the exhibition, we suggest discussing what you saw over cocktails at one of the best rooftop bars in the city — Lladró. Here they serve cocktails made with premium spirits, classic tapas, and, of course, the main attraction — a panoramic view of the Old Town from the terrace of the MYR hotel, the perfect place to reflect on your day together.

Finally, at sunset, if you still have the energy, time and desire, take tram number 4 and head to Malvarrosa Beach.
After a day like this, you can safely say: if they didn’t call you back, they simply weren’t the right person for you. But would that make the day any worse?

A First Date After Years of Marriage: Because the Two of You Are What Matters Most

Dates for young couples, first dates, carefree student meetings — all of that is wonderful, and all of it becomes a priceless collection of memories we carry with us wherever we go. But reality, with time, looks very different from the idealistic (or not quite idealistic) scenes of youth: children, chores, emigration, work, schools and nurseries often take up all your time and energy. As the saying goes, everyday life kills romance.

So we suggest you spend the day in a way that helps you remember why you chose each other in the first place — and why after the first date you agreed to a second.

And we will again start the day with a coffee. But before that — if necessary — with a call to your nanny, grandmother or anyone who can look after the children, so that you can spend the day together alone. We won’t go into detail about where to find coffee but we strongly recommend lingering here instead of gulping it down on the go. Today, you’re not rushing anywhere and you’re not serving anyone. Put your phones aside and talk: discuss what you expect from the day and how you feel.

This time, there will be no museum marathons or kilometres on foot: you’ll leave Valencia by car (just about an hour’s drive) and head towards Requena Utiel, the very heart of Valencia’s wine-producing region.

Your destination is Bodegas Hispano Suizas — a place where local grape varieties are crafted into some of the best wines and cavas in the region.

Here, at a very reasonable price starting from €40 for a guided tour and tasting, you’ll be able to try several varieties of wine, learn the history of the winery, discover production secrets and observe the full production cycle. It is a chance to be together in nature.

A couple of hours later, after the tour and tasting, it will be time for lunch (and wine, as you know, works wonders on the appetite). You can eat on-site — the lunch, prepared from local produce right there, comes with a couple more glasses of wine, and this option costs €75 instead of €40.

After lunch, you’ll likely have a couple of hours to spare. Spend them on a 90-minute spa session for two — for example, at Cobre29, where rituals start at €45, or at any other spa that suits you. It’s hard to imagine a better way to end such a relaxing day than with a massage, sauna and jacuzzi.

A Date With the City — and With Yourself

If you don’t have a partner, that is no reason to skip dates. After all, the one person you’ll spend your entire life with is yourself. And you can take yourself out on a date, too.

We suggest starting the day with breakfast. Choose a café with a terrace: the season of unbearable heat is already over, and if the weather smiles upon you, it will be the most comfortable way to start your day.

Next, we suggest heading to the Natural Science Museum. In the museum’s courtyard (if one can call it that), grab a coffee or any other drink and watch the Spanish teenagers — or simply people in general. Afterwards, inside the museum, you’ll be able to see who we are and what came before us, and perhaps reflect on what will remain after us. Giant brachiosaurus skeletons and scientific experiments can easily make your heart beat faster and remind you that the world is a fascinating place, even if you understand perfectly well how it works.

Your next destination should be either the oceanarium or the Bioparc — depending on your preferences.

At the Valencia Bioparc, you can observe dozens of species of mammals, amphibians and reptiles almost in their natural environment. We’re lucky here: the two best bioparks in Europe are in Spain — the one in Valencia and Loro Park in Tenerife. You could easily spend an entire day wandering among icy landscapes, watching penguins, and searching for anteaters and capybaras hidden in tropical greenery and wetlands.

If your heart is more drawn to the underwater world, head to the Oceanarium — it is vast and magnificent. A perfect place to see three-metre sharks, rays, piranhas, jellyfish and hundreds of other ocean and sea creatures up close.

Towards lunchtime, return to the city, exploring the streets of the central districts. Grab a takeaway lunch, hop on a tram or into your car and head to the wild beach in the Albufera National Park. The high season is over now, so it will be quiet. Here, with the sound of the waves, you can eat peacefully and read the book you brought with you, without distractions.

After that, you could certainly head home — but if you’d like to extend such a lovely day, go back into the city and call COOKTL on the way to reserve a spot on the most beautiful cocktail terrace in town. Their signature cocktails, inspired by Michelin-starred chef Begoña Rodrigo, will not leave you indifferent and will make a perfect finale for the day.