The sunset boat
A fisherman's craft parting golden water in silence.
Tobias Maschler (Plochingen, Germany) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Enrique Íñiguez Rodríguez (Qoan) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Enrique Íñiguez Rodríguez (Qoan) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Sjaak Kempe from Groningen, The Netherlands — CC BY 2.0
Historic paella valenciana: lake rice with chicken, rabbit, local beans, sometimes snails — no seafood (that is the later 'arroz marinero'). For halal-minded readers: order it all-chicken or seafood and ask about the stock — El Palmar's restaurants customise readily with pre-order.
Bus 24/25 from the centre straight to El Palmar (about 45 minutes) — learn the evening return times beforehand. Cyclists take the coastal forest (ninety minutes out). Organised sunset tours are the comfortable lazy option.
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The Albufera — from the Arabic al-buhayra, "the little sea", in name and truth — is Spain's largest lake and Valencia's mother soul: here between its fresh water and the rice fields the Andalusis planted, true paella was born, and the village of El Palmar at its heart still cooks the historic original in family restaurants. The natural park shelters three hundred bird species — flamingos, herons and terns crossing between Africa and Europe — and the finest rite: a traditional fisherman's boat parting the dusk in silence, the Albufera sunset popularly certified eastern Spain's most beautiful. Just fourteen kilometres out: a public bus from the centre or a bicycle through the coastal Dehesa pines — one complete afternoon: arrive mid-afternoon, original paella, sunset boat, evening return. Valencia beyond its walls.
A fisherman's craft parting golden water in silence.
El Palmar cooks the original: lake rice, duck and eel.
Flamingos and herons at the great migration station.
The water terraces our forebears planted, still harvested.
Dehesa del Saler, 46012 Valencia