When we decided we wanted to live near Spain's high speed rail we discovered Valencia city. It's an hour to Madrid by high speed rail and an hour to Barcelona by ferry over the Mediterranean. They have an international airport. The location was exactly what we were looking for.
When we looked into the city beyond its location we discovered it was founded by Romans in 138 BC. The architecture is absolutely stunning.
Today Valencia is close to the same size in population as Nashville and is the third largest city in Spain. It's currently as or more affordable than Nashville was when we moved into Nashville in 2010.
In the 1950's the city diverted the river that had been flooding the city and turned the former riverbed into a giant park through the center of the city. It's 160m wide and 12 km long. The park includes the zoo, the largest aquarium in Europe, and the Museum of Art and Science.
Between the flat terrain of the city, the Turia Park running the length of the center of the city, and a 30 kph speed limit on most streets, Valencia is extremely bike-able. We hope our main form of in city transportation will be bicycles.
Valencia is a 10a zone for gardening, comparable to Florida, Texas, or Southern California. The idea of growing our own citrus and having year round tomatoes is very appealing.
Valencia has a very strong expat community from English speaking countries, so if we get lonely for English language speakers, Valencia has them.
We wanted somewhere comparable to Nashville, full of close places to explore while the pandemic becomes endemic and a good place to explore the rest of Europe from. Valencia checks all those boxes and more. We cannot wait to start exploring.
Note: We learned after making this video that this band is out of Miami... oops.
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