Spain's Valencia: New and Improving

In a once-derelict area being called America's Cup Park, a new $46 million, glass-front building at the race's starting point will have six restaurants and 20 bars, clubs and entertainment venues.

Money has also been set aside to bury some streets underground in order to create a new 64-acre park downtown, and Calatrava is designing three translucent crystal towers for offices, luxury apartments and a hotel.

And that's just the government money pouring in; private industry has taken note of the America's Cup and the long-term visibility it's expected to bring the city. Hotel developers, including the Hilton and Westin chains, are among those with major construction projects underway, planned or completed.

It's still got some fixing up to do, but Spain's third-largest city is poised to take what it considers its rightful place as one of Europe's major tourist destinations.

On the Grail Trail

Valencia was rather open in its opposition to the long-lived dictator Francisco Franco, who, among other things, banned the Valencian language. The city clearly suffered under his rule, and few mourned his demise in 1975. Within about five years, Valencia began its facelift. Clearly, much of that energy and pride was initially focused on the old quarter.

You don't need to study a map and carefully mark up all the attractions you wish to see. The area is compact, and streets inevitably run into squares with other old-quarter streets leading from them. Just start walking, with a guidebook in hand so you can identify what you're looking at, and over the course of, say, two days you'll stumble across most everything you'll want to see.

My first day's walk from a hotel in the old city took me, without plans, straight to the main square, Plaza de la Reina, a gracious square outlined with sidewalk cafes. An entire quarter of the square is taken up by the massive cathedral with the Holy Grail. You can get a great view of the entire city if you're willing to walk up more than 200 stone steps to the top of the bell tower. Or so I'm told. I headed straight through the intricately carved stone doors into the central nave, with its soaring Gothic ceiling.

The cathedral doubles as an art museum, and among other things houses the oldest Renaissance painting in Spain: an Italian work created in 1470.

There's also a plethora of paintings of saints being tortured for their faith: saints still conscious even though their entrails are being pulled out; saints looking heavenward as their bodies are punctured with arrows or as they await beheading. After half a dozen such pictures, you remember that historically, martyrdom isn't just an extreme Muslim phenomenon.

More than a dozen small chapels, each with its own religious artworks, surround the nave. Each chapel is devoted to a particular saint, martyr or primary Christian figure, and you can light a candle to any or all. Some candles cost more than others, though: Lighting one at the Christ Chapel costs a euro, or about $1.30, while a candle at the Chapel of St. James is only 25 cents.

The Holy Grail, which was repeatedly moved around the world for protection by the Knights Templar, was placed in the Chapel of the Holy Grail in 1437. It's about time someone told "Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown.

Oh, and by the way, when you're done touring the cathedral, it's a short walk to a major center for Opus Dei, the bastion of conservative Catholicism vilified in Brown's novel. You can walk into the courtyard and take a look around.