City of Arts and Sciences

Overview

The City of Arts and Sciences is a complex of six buildings by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela at the southeast end of Valencia’s drained Turia riverbed, containing an IMAX planetarium, an interactive science museum and the largest aquarium in Europe. The riverbed was emptied and the river rerouted after the catastrophic flood of 1957, and the old channel became a sunken park, which is why a run of white concrete buildings sits below street level in the middle of a city.

Walking the site costs nothing. The pools, ramps, bridges and the Umbracle promenade are open and unticketed, and only three buildings sell tickets: L’Hemisfèric, the Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe and L’Oceanogràfic. Plenty of people come for an hour, photograph the reflections off the pools and leave without buying anything. That is a perfectly good visit, and it is the one to make if you are short on time or travelling with anyone allergic to queues.

The complex went up one building at a time over eleven years: L’Hemisfèric in 1998, the Museu de les Ciències in 2000, L’Umbracle in 2001, L’Oceanogràfic in 2003, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in 2005, the Montolivet Bridge in 2007, the Assut de l’Or Bridge in 2008 and L’Àgora in 2009. The final bill was 1,200 million euros, against an initial 1991 budget of 300 million for three structures, and the overspend has been a Valencian political argument ever since.

It draws more than 3.5 million visits a year, which is why school groups, opera audiences, families and photographers all end up on the same walkways on the same Tuesday morning. The operator took almost €35 million in revenue in 2024 and cleared over €8 million in profit, even after a €3 million repair bill from that year’s floods.

Film crews treat the place as ready-made future. Exterior scenes of the futuristic city in Tomorrowland were shot here, the Doctor Who episode “Smile” used it as a colony world, and it stood in for the DELOS headquarters in the third season of Westworld.

Collection

Six structures and two bridges sit on one long axis, and each ticketed building has its own entrance, its own security check and its own price. Knowing what is inside each shell saves you from paying for the wrong one.

L’Hemisfèric

The eye-shaped building on the reflecting pool opened on 16 April 1998, the first part of the complex to take visitors. Inside the concrete shell, 110 metres long and 55.5 metres wide, is a half-sphere projection dome that works as an IMAX cinema, a planetarium and a laserium. The operator calls it the largest projection hall in Spain, at 900 m² with three different projection systems. A ticket buys one session and nothing more, so pick the film before you pay.

Language is handled at the door rather than at the box office. Headphones are given out at the entrance to the auditorium and you choose between Spanish, Valencian and English, with French and Italian available depending on the film. Sessions run about 45 to 50 minutes.

Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe

The building that looks like a whale skeleton opened in 2000 and is 220 metres long, 80 metres wide and 55 metres high, with 26,000 m² of exhibition floor across three storeys. Nothing here is behind glass in the old museum sense. The second floor holds “The Legacy of Science”, built around the work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Severo Ochoa and Jean Dausset, and the third is the “Chromosome Forest”, which walks through the sequencing of human DNA alongside the “Zero Gravity” and “Space Academy” rooms.

L’Oceanogràfic

Félix Candela’s aquarium, opened in 2003 and shaped like a water lily, covers 110,000 m² and holds 42 million litres of water, with over 500 species. The buildings are grouped by environment: the Mediterranean, Wetlands, Temperate and Tropical Seas, Oceans, the Antarctic, the Arctic, Islands and the Red Sea, plus the Dolphinarium. The current draw is Kylu, described by the operator as the only beluga calf in Europe. Budget about four hours; the official estimate is not padding, and the walk between environments is long.

L’Umbracle

The arched promenade along the southern edge is free, and it is the best vantage point on the whole site. It runs 320 metres long and 60 metres wide, with 55 fixed and 54 floating arches standing 18 metres high, and it was designed as the entrance to the complex. The planting is Valencian: 99 palms, 78 smaller palms, 62 bitter orange trees and 42 varieties of shrub from the region, chosen to change colour by season.

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, L’Àgora and the bridges

The opera house was inaugurated on 9 October 2005 and holds four spaces: the main hall, the master hall, the auditorium and the Martin y Soler theatre, under a metal feather roof 230 metres long and 70 metres high carried on two laminated steel shells weighing over 3,000 tons. L’Àgora, finished in 2009, is a covered plaza used for concerts, congresses and sport, including the Valencia Open 500. Neither runs a daily ticketed visit, so on an ordinary weekday you see them from outside.

Both bridges are pedestrian-friendly and useful. The Montolivet Bridge joins an older straight northern segment by Fernández Ordóñez to a curved southern segment by Calatrava, and the cable-stayed Assut de l’Or Bridge carries a curved pylon 125 metres high, the highest point in the city.

Visiting

The address is Avinguda del Professor López Piñero (Historiador de la Medicina) 7, 46013 València, and the site has its own metro stop: line 5 to Alameda - Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, or line 10 to Ciutat Arts i Ciències - Justícia. EMT bus lines 13, 14, 35 and 95 terminate at the complex, line 150 runs direct from the airport, and the nearest Cercanías station is Valencia-Cabanyal, a 15 to 20 minute walk away. Coming from the centre of Valencia, the flattest and quickest route is down the Turia gardens on foot or by bike, with Valenbisi docks along the way.

Hours

Everything opens at 10:00. Closing depends on the season and the building: the Museu de les Ciències shuts at 18:00 or 19:00 for most of the year and stays open to 21:00 through July and August, while L’Oceanogràfic usually closes at 18:00 and runs to 20:00 or 21:00 in high season. The ticket offices close one hour before the Museu does, so a late arrival without a ticket is a wasted trip.

Tickets and prices

Adult prices for 2026, from the official rate table.

Ticket	Adult	Reduced
L’Hemisfèric (one session)	€8.90	€6.90
Museu de les Ciències	€9.90	€7.60
L’Oceanogràfic	€37.00 to €43.05	€27.45 to €31.95
Museu + Hemisfèric	€14.10	€10.90
Hemisfèric + Oceanogràfic	€38.60 to €45.00	€29.00 to €33.90
All three (“La Ciutat”)	€45.55 to €51.25	€35.80 to €40.40

Only the Oceanogràfic and the combinations that include it move with the season; the Museu and the Hemisfèric cost the same in January and August. The reduced rate covers children aged 4 to 12, over 65s and retired people, pensioners and visitors with a disability, all on production of documentation, and under 4s go free. A combined ticket is valid across one, two or three consecutive days, but you cannot use it to enter the same building twice.

Buy online at tickets.cac.es and you go straight through the turnstile. Desks on site take Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Bizum, cash and the Spanish cultural voucher. Tickets cannot be refunded or cancelled; the date can be changed up to twice within a year of the original visit, by calling +34 961 974 686 or emailing reservas@cac.es before your visit date, paying any price difference.

How long it takes

The operator’s own estimates are three hours for the Museu and about four for the Oceanogràfic, with Hemisfèric sessions running under an hour, and it openly recommends spreading the complex over two or three days rather than one. The suggested split is one day for the Oceanogràfic and another for the Museu and the Hemisfèric together, with the outdoor areas filling the gaps. Re-entry rules differ: at the Museu you can leave and come back the same day on the same ticket, while at the Oceanogràfic re-entry is allowed only with a combined ticket used the same day or for school groups in high season, and either way you need a wristband from the Information Point.

Driving and parking

The car park sits inside the Umbracle on two levels, with room for 661 cars and 25 coaches, open daily 08:00 to midnight, and you cannot enter it in the last hour before closing. Overnight stays are not permitted and motorhomes are refused for security reasons. A second car park at the Oceanogràfic holds 867 cars. There are 20 charging points for electric vehicles, 18 semi-fast up to 22 kW at €0.30 per kWh and two fast up to 80 kW at €0.35 per kWh, operated through the Moviltik platform by scanning the QR code on the post.

Access, storage and rules

All the venues have adapted access points, lifts and accessible toilets, and wheelchair loan is free against a deposit: €10 at the Oceanogràfic information point, €20 at the Museu information point in the east area. You show ID, the chair stays in the building you collected it from, and there is no booking, so arrive early if you need one. Animals are not admitted apart from registered assistance dogs under Valencian by-law 12/2003 of 10 April.

Storage is split between the two big buildings. The Museu has free lockers on the first floor for small bags, at 36 cm by 40 cm by 50 cm and 72 cm by 40 cm by 50 cm; the Oceanogràfic charges €3, €4 or €5 a day for lockers on the lower level of its access building, card payment only, opened and closed as often as you like during the day. Eating and drinking inside the buildings is restricted to designated areas, swimming in the pools is forbidden, and drones may not be flown over the site. Under-12s are not admitted without an adult responsible for them.

Guided tours are booked by phone or email rather than online. A sightseeing walking tour of the exteriors runs about an hour and a half and gets into areas otherwise closed to the public, and an architectural tour led by an architect runs two hours on either of two routes; both are arranged on +34 961 974 686 or reservas@cac.es.

Tips

• The exteriors are free and always have been. If your only interest is the architecture, walk the Umbracle promenade and both bridges, spend nothing, and put the €45 into lunch in town instead.

• Do the arithmetic before buying a combined ticket. In low season the Hemisfèric and the Oceanogràfic bought separately come to €45.90, against €38.60 combined, and all three buildings come to €55.80 separately against €45.55 combined. The saving is real, but only if you actually use every part.

• Season only affects the Oceanogràfic. The same aquarium ticket is €37.00 in low season and €43.05 in high season, while the Museu and the Hemisfèric hold their price all year.

• In July and August the Museu stays open until 21:00, which is the only time of year you can do a proper evening visit and still catch the buildings lit up afterwards.

• Book the Hemisfèric ahead at weekends and in high season. Capacity is limited and the operator singles it out as the one to pre-book.

• Arrive about 30 minutes before a dolphin presentation if you want a seat, and check the times on the day, since they shift with visitor numbers, weather and the animals themselves.

• Download the Museu audio guide to your phone for €1 and bring headphones. It needs a valid same-day ticket to unlock.

• Keep your Museu ticket in your pocket. It lets you walk out for a picnic in the Turia gardens and come back the same day, which the Oceanogràfic will not do for you on a single ticket.

• Rain is not a reason to cancel. Most of the ticketed space is indoors, so a wet day is a good day to spend the money rather than walking the exteriors.

• Check the news page before travelling on a big event day. When the city marathon runs, parts of the complex close and the Umbracle car park shuts entirely.