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If you are travelling with kids to Valencia I have the perfect plan for you. You can have fun and learn new interesting things about nature, science and animals in the City of Arts and Sciences and what is even better, you won’t have to take buses, subways, taxis or drive from place to place, you have everything nearby.
 
The City of Arts and Sciences, a huge complex backed by the Valencia Regional Government, has become an international reference point and symbol of the drive towards cultural tourism and the dynamism with which the Comunidad Valenciana wishes to present itself to the world. A leisure-cultural centre that astonishes with its architecture and its immense capacity for entertaining, teaching and stirring up interest, by promoting public involvement and cultural dissemination.
 
Open throughout the year from Monday to Sunday, the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia provides the public with an educational tour of the prodigies of science and research, the latest technologies and nature, music and art: a wide offer that complements the traditional tourism of the Comunidad Valenciana and that attracts millions of visitors every year.
 
Along an axis of almost two kilometres, in the former riverbed of the River Turia, with a surface area of 350,000 square metres, the City of Arts and Sciences is a great open space, an educational area based on the idea of intelligent and cultural leisure that makes Valencia the largest centre of these characteristics in Europe.

Here are my tips for a perfect weekend with children in Valencia:
 
1.- Start with the Science Museum Príncipe Felipe
The museum is a centre for scientific education in the widest sense of the term that creates opportunities for people to experience a different kind of learning situation in which the outcome of thought is not envisaged in a rigid way. The model is in line with the revolutionary idea that governs this type of centre: full interactivity, schematically symbolised by the key phrase, a little provocative, but always to the point, “prohibited not to touch, not to feel, not to think”. What it really means is that it is “prohibited not to learn”. The aim is to communicate, rather than the traditional objective approach based on collections of valuable pieces.
 
The building that houses the contents is one of the keys to developing an exhibitory theme with its own identity, as this is what makes the Museum unique. On the one hand, the building of Santiago Calatrava, is really impressive; it is so bold that not only must museum displays avoid “fighting” against it, but also they have to make use of it to the benefit of their conceptual discourse. A formal competition must never be made between content and container; the latter is architecturally impressive and the contents have to be so also, but from the conceptual point of view.
 
The building is above all an architectural gem the admiration of which must also be possible from inside the building. It no doubt constitutes an effective testimony to the technological and aesthetic achievements that humanity has achieved at the beginning of the 21st century.
 
2.- Continue with L’Hemisfèric
It represents a huge human eye open to the world: the “Eye of Wisdom” that launched the City of Arts and Sciences project. This is the only auditorium in Spain with a concave screen covering 900 square metres, 24 metres in diameter, showing three audiovisual performances: representations of astronomical phenomena in the Planetarium, IMAX giant-screen films and state-of-the-art Omniscam Laser displays at the Laserium.
 
Special headphones broadcast the narration in four languages: Spanish, Valencian, English and French. The planetarium shows (The New Star and The Night of the Martians) are only in Spanish. There are different films such as The New Star , a new interactive spectacle that shows the kids how to observe the nocturn sky with a host-guide that teaches them with games and riddles some phenomenon such as the movement of the stars or how to find the Polar Star.
 
Kids can also enjoy Coral Reefs which tells the trip carried out by explorers Howard and Michele Hall during 10 months by most beautiful and dangerous reefs of the world. Forces of Nature can also amaze little children and adults because this National Geographic film shows geological and atmospheric phenomena and transports the spectator to the greatest natural disasters on our planet. Experience these phenomena in the company of scientists, the men and women who willingly risk their lives in order to better understand these forces and to increase our possibilities of surviving these catastrophes.
 
3.- And finish the tour at the Aquarium
The largest marine complex in all Europe presents itself to the world as a unique space, as a voyage through the seas and oceans of our planet that takes visitors to the most unique marine ecosystems.
 
Its state-of-the-art architecture, the layout of the different aquariums and its scientific, entertaining and educational vocation, make the marine world more accessible to the public and raise its awareness of the need to protect fauna and flora, as well as serving as a base for scientific research.
 
The Aquarium of the City of Arts and Sciences invites us to discover an authentic marine park that encompasses the main seas and oceans of the planet. With an extension of 110,000 m2 and a volume of more than 42 million litres (the equivalent of 15 Olympic swimming pools), it constitutes the largest aquarium in Europe.

• Mediterranean. This displays a part of the biological wealth of the Mediterranean Sea by means of seven aquariums of different formats adapted to the habitat represented, with around 7,400 specimens.
• Wetlands. A spectacular 26-metre high sphere simulates two of the most fascinating wetlands of the planet: the mangrove swamp and the marshlands.
• Temperate and Tropical. The Temperate and Tropical installation allows one to undertake a voyage from the temperate waters of oceanic regions to the warn waters of the tropics though aquariums connected by an amazing underwater tunnel, 70 metres in length, the longest in Europe.
• Oceans. This is the largest aquarium in the Oceanographic Park, with a volume of more than 7 million litres. It represents a simulated voyage across the Atlantic Ocean through a tunnel where the visitor can see species such as sandbar sharks and grey sharks, as well as guitarfish, eagle rays and sunfish, among others.
• Antarctic. A colony of Humboldt penguins is the main attraction at this exhibition, set in a scenario of rocky cliffs with areas for reproduction and rearing, and in whose submerged section one can observe the penguins swimming, apparently effortlessly, with graceful movements under the water.
• Arctic. A large igloo-like dome houses the Arctic zone, faithfully recreating these cold latitudes, with rocky cliffs for the walruses and blocks of ice for the beluga whales, so reproducing the natural living conditions of these grand mammals.
• Islands. Situated in the open air, this area represents the islands off the South American coast, featuring large colonies of Patagonian sea lions.
• Red Sea-Underwater Auditorium. This is the name of the large hall topped by a “pilgrim’s shell” shaped roof. Inside there is an auditorium for 482 people, whose backdrop is a spectacular aquarium representing the Red Sea, where species such as shoal surgeon fish, partially masked butterfly and Napoleon fish live.
• Underwater Restaurant. Situated in the centre of the complex, this is the most emblematic building of the Aquarium due to the distinctiveness of its roof designed by Félix Candela, with a parabolic shape similar to a water lily, and a huge aquarium going all the way round the perimeter of its lower floor.

Useful Information
City of Arts and Sciences
Avinguda Autopista del Saler nº 1, 3, 5, 7
46013 Valencia

Information and Booking: 902 100 031

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 18th, 2007 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Valencia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.