Spain Guide
Valencia and Murcia
Mercado Colón
Address: c/Cirilo Amoros
Price: Free
Valencia's renovated Mercado Colón is a truly impressive modernista building. Its open-sided rectangular design loosely resembles a church, with slim wrought-iron columns supporting a steep pitched roof, and monumental arched facades at either end. However, it's the building's detail that's really outstanding, combining two-tone brickwork with broken tile mosaic chimneys, features that reveal the influence of modernista architect Antoni Gaudí – indeed, the market's architect, Francisco Mora, was a close personal friend of the Catalan genius.
The Mercado Colón now houses colourful flower stalls, a bookstore, upmarket cafés and the lovely restaurant El Alto de Colón, with a vaulted ceiling of a Valencian mosaic, and large windows that offer glimpses of the market's eye-catching modernista ironwork.