Sight Name: Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias
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Intro: Valencia's City of Arts and Science is a huge complex of visitor attractions, including l'Hemisfèríc, itself containing an IMAX cinema, a laser projection installation and a planetarium; the Museo de las Ciencias Principe Felipe, a next-generation science museum; l'Oceanogràfic, the largest aquarium in Europe; the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, a multi-concert hall; and l'Umbracle, a kind of entrance-cum-walkway-cum-viewpoint.
Body of the text: The Ciutat de les Artes i de les Ciències, to use its Valencian Catalan name, lies at the end of the park created after Valencia's River Turia was diverted in the eighties (it used to flood, causing copious damage). Its conception was very ambitions, and its design and execution were largely entrusted to Santiago Calatrava (if Spain had an Architect Laureate, it would be Calatrava) and the result is, frankly, dazzling.

To get an overview of the CAC, you need to visit l'Umbracle, otherwise the least interesting structure on the site, being functionally not much more than the roof of the car park. But from there you get an idea of the extension of the CAC, and of why they felt justified in calling it a city: it is immense. You don't need to feel overwhelmed, though, of the four remaining buildings or complexes in the CAC, one is not yet ready and you are unlikely to want to visit more than two of the other three (and it is worth thinking before choosing between a combined ticket and separate ones, and one of the double admission combinations may well be right for you and yours - see the link at the bottom of the page).

Whether or not you are interested in l'Hemisfèríc will depend on your likings and what is being projected at any given time. Although the IMAX system is much more widespread than it used to be, the films available, particularly those shown in l'Hemisfèric, still tend to be documentaries or educational in some other way (not that there is anything wrong with that, just that it may not be your cup of tea).

The Prince Felipe Science Museum is terrific, a must-see at least for my taste (allow an absolute minimum of an hour and a half). Apart from its permanent exhibits, it holds workshops, interactive exhibitions, and demonstrations, not all of which are included in the standard museum ticket price.

It is easy to see why admission to l'Oceanogràfic costs three times that to any of the CAC's other attractions - its scale. To refer to it as "an aquarium" is like calling the Galapagos Islands a nature reserve, for its mixture of indoor and outdoor exhibits covers a tremendous variety of marine ecosystems. The Mediterranean, for example, is represented by seven aquariums reproducing "Posidonia Beds, Port, Breakers Zone, Contact Zone, Approach Zone, Infra-littoral, Reef-derived Zone." And the oceanarium does not stop at the shoreline, but includes terrestrial or semi-terrestrial ecosystems like tropical marshes or mangrove swamps and Arctic cliffs.

In spite of having been inaugurated in October 2005, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia is not, in fact, open yet, and if you suspect that that might be institutional cheating, well, so do I. When it does start functioning, it should be one of the most important theatre and concert spaces in Europe, with four areas for different kinds of performance.
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