Mercado de Colón
Mercado de Colón features on the Gingerguide audio walk through Valencia. Give it roughly ~60 min: enough to look, hear a two to three minute story on the spot, and ask the AI guide whatever the story leaves open.
- Type market
- Suggested visit ~60 min
- Valencia Valencia guide
About Mercado de Colón
A stunning 1916 Modernisme market hall, Valencia's most beautiful iron and ceramics building, now transformed into a food market and café complex where locals come for morning horchata, fresh produce, and one of the finest covered urban spaces in Spain.
The Mercado de Colón is one of the most beautiful buildings in Valencia, a market hall designed by the architect Francisco Mora Berenguer and completed in 1916 in the Valencian Modernisme style, the Valencian equivalent of Barcelona's Modernisme movement. The building is a long rectangular hall with an extraordinary iron and glass roof structure, its facades covered in elaborate ceramic tile decoration including colourful floral panels, shields, and inscriptions. After a period of decline, the market was magnificently restored in 2003 and reopened as a covered food market and social space. It now houses artisan food stalls, upscale bars and restaurants, and a café that serves Valencia's famous horchata de chufa, a traditional cold drink made from tiger nuts.
Did you know? Horchata de chufa, the cold drink sold at the Mercado de Colón, is made from tiger nuts (chufa), a small underground tuber related to sedge grass. It has been produced in the Valencia region since Moorish times and has a protected designation of origin (DOP) requiring the chufa to be grown in a specific area north of Valencia.
How long is a visit to Mercado de Colón?
Set aside roughly ~60 min for Mercado de Colón. That covers a good look and the narrated story, and because you set the pace you can always stay on.
Is Mercado de Colón worth your time?
Mercado de Colón is among the 23 narrated highlights the Gingerguide team chose for Valencia, so it is worth a look. Hear the story for the context, then ask the AI guide for anything more.
Nearby stops in Valencia
Hear the story of Mercado de Colón
Preview the Valencia tour free in the Gingerguide app.