Ancient Walls of Valencia in Valencia, Spain

Valencia was never known for its walls.

Unlike Ávila or even Albarracín, these walls don’t enclose the city, nor announce themselves in any showy form. Most of what once protected the city is hidden underground, crumbling between buildings, or so iconic that it's rarely seen as one piece of a much larger fortification system (including one of its most famous postcards, the Torres de Serranos). In fact, Valencia has had not one, but three walls, built across three vastly different eras.

The first belonged to Roman Valentia, founded in 138 BCE by consul Brutus (grandfather of the Brutus). The city grew along the Via Augusta (now Calle San Vicente Mártir), the ancient highway of the Iberian Peninsula, connecting it to the core of the Roman Empire. The city and its walls were destroyed in 75 B.C. by the troops of Pompey the Great (whose head would be gifted to Julius Caesar by Cleopatra years later). That original enclosure disappeared, with few records of its fate, but Valentia Edetanorum’s history survives in the Almoina Archaeological Museum, where sections of Roman streets, baths, and fortifications remain beneath glass walkways.

Following the collapse of Roman authority and a Visigothic period, Islamic Balansiya expanded beyond its earlier limits in the 11th century, surrounding itself with a new defensive wall and seven gates. James I of Aragon would later conquer Valencia in 1238 (a victory that, according to legend, earned the city its bat emblem), ending the Islamic period. 

By the 14th century, Valencia had outgrown these limits too. Under the Crown of Aragon, a third, Medieval Wall (also called the Christian Wall) arose with what remained of its predecessor, and three times larger. 

And perhaps it’s no coincidence that one of Valencia’s most curious expressions, “estar a la luna de Valencia”, also references its walled past. In medieval times, the city’s 12 gates were shut at ten each night, so latecomers were left outside to sleep beneath the open sky, quite literally “by Valencia’s moon.” 

In the 19th century, its demolition was decreed. The first strike of the pickaxe fell on February 20, 1865. Over time, the walls were dismantled piece by piece, absorbed into new buildings, or reduced to rubble.

Valencia may now be better known for beaches and Agua de Valencia, but beneath the surface is a city that spent nearly two millennia building ways to keep the world out—even if sometimes it left a few stragglers in.