You’re looking for a grand, peachy-pink palace with ornate balconies and a striking square tower at the top-just scan around the plaza for a stately building with brick walls, stone bases, and a balcony above a richly decorated central door.
Welcome to the Palacio Arzobispal de Valencia-home to more bishops and archbishops than you can shake a crozier at! Imagine you’re stepping into a place where the echoes of power and faith are as thick as the stone beneath your feet. Now, if you’d visited during the days of King Jaime I of Aragón, you wouldn’t have found this glorious palace. Instead, you’d be facing a quirky bunch of nine houses jammed together, just hoping not to topple over! But soon, those little dwellings couldn’t keep up with the ambitions of the archbishops, so the estate grew bigger, swallowing up nearly everything between here and the now vanished church of Santo Tomás.
Back in the 1300s, there was a bit of drama-Bishop Hugo de Fenollet built an arch linking this palace to the cathedral. The city’s jurors weren’t thrilled. “Who let the church in?” they might’ve grumbled, but after a bit of medieval negotiating (and probably some wine), they finally allowed it in 1357.
Fast forward to the 18th century, the palace keeps getting glammed up: imagine elegant halls, a sculpture of Santo Tomás de Villanueva appearing in the courtyard, and a library so impressive that locals boasted it was the oldest in the city-a reader’s paradise, until a Spanish war broke out and parts of it went up in smoke! Thankfully, the archbishops rebuilt, and even added collections of old coins, paintings, and sculptures. This house was truly full of treasures and secrets.
Then, disaster struck during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. The palace was set on fire, and by the time the conflict ended, it was knocked down and rebuilt by 1946. And here’s where things get a twist-the current palace was designed by Vicente Traver, giving it that grand, historicist baroque style you see now, with pink bricks, stately stone, and that eye-catching triangular pediment.
In modern times, this place has welcomed not just archbishops, but popes themselves-including Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, making it quite the heavenly hotel! So as you stand here, close your eyes and picture it all: the medieval arguments, the shimmer of vanished treasures, the scent of burning books, and the footsteps of saints and pontiffs wandering these echoing halls. Not bad for just another day in Valencia, right?
