The Museo de Historia de València is the city’s history museum, housed in the covered reservoir that first held Valencia’s drinking water. The building came first and it was never meant for visitors. In 1850 Valencia covered a reservoir to hold the city’s first supply of drinking water, and the vaults built to carry that roof are now the room where the city tells its own history.
What is the Valencia History Museum? The Museo de Historia de València is the city history museum, set inside the reservoir that first held Valencia’s drinking water in 1850. Eleven vaults rest on 250 brick pillars above 8 sections running from Roman Valentia to today. Entry is 2 euros, free on Sundays.
Eleven vaults on 250 pillars
The Museo de Historia de València occupies the reservoir that first stored drinking water for the city, built in 1850, and the structure is on show rather than hidden. Underground, 11 vaults rest on 250 brick pillars, which works out at roughly 23 pillars per vault.
The consequence is a room nobody would design for exhibitions. Instead of open floor there is a forest of supports, and the display has been fitted between them, so the walk through is broken up by nineteenth-century engineering at every turn.
That makes it the only municipal collection in the city housed in a piece of infrastructure. The Almudín shows a medieval grain warehouse and the Rice Museum a mill that ran from 1906 to the 1970s, but here the container solved a public health problem rather than a trading one.
The practical advice follows from that. Look up before looking at the cases: the vaults and pillars have been in place since 1850 and are not going anywhere, while the exhibition layout is the part that can be revisited on another trip.
Eight sections, from Valentia to now
The permanent display is divided into eight sections covering different periods, opening with Roman Valentia and running through to the present day. It is the only continuous reading of the city’s history assembled in one building.
That is what makes it the ordering visit rather than another stop. The monuments in the old town each hold a single century — the silk exchange the fifteenth, the Almudín the fourteenth under a seventeenth-century roof — and here the eight stretches run in sequence.
For a short trip the implication is about order rather than time. Doing this first supplies the frame; everything else supplies the object, which changes what the rest of the museums that charge nothing on a Sunday actually mean.
The 8 sections also settle a question the old town leaves open. Walking between monuments, a visitor meets the Roman city, the Islamic city and the Christian city as three unrelated fragments; laid out in sequence here, they become one sequence with dates attached.
Two addresses, two towns
| If you search for | You get | Published by |
|---|---|---|
| Camí Vell de Xirivella 1 | an address in Valencia, postcode CP 46014 | Ayuntamiento de València |
| Valencia 42, Mislata | an address in Mislata, postcode CP 46920 | Visit València |
| Parque de Cabecera | the park both listings name | both sources |
The two municipal sources disagree on street, postcode and municipality, which is more than a typo. Typing either one into a phone works, but only if you know which listing you read it from.
The physical explanation is the boundary. The building stands at the western end of the old riverbed, where the Valencia and Mislata municipal limits meet, and the Parque de Cabecera is the reference both listings share.
For getting there, the park beats the street name. It closes the western end of the Turia Gardens, so walking the riverbed to its far end delivers you to the door without needing a number at all. It is the opposite end of the park from the City of Arts and Sciences.
That position also explains why the museum is missed. Most visitors work the eastern half of the riverbed, where the 2 euros here buy the one exhibition that would have explained the other half of their week.
Two euros, and no break at lunch
General admission is 2 euros and the reduced rate 1 euro, on the Visit València listing, which is the only source publishing a figure at all — the council page links to ticket sales without naming one. The reduced band covers groups, Carnet Jove students, pensioners and children aged 7 to 12.
Sundays and public holidays are free, as across the municipal museums, which is also why the museum barely registers in the sum behind the Valencia Tourist Card: the most it saves is two euros on a weekday.
The timetable is where it parts company with its peers. It opens Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 19:00 straight through, with no 14:00 to 15:00 break of the kind the Almudín, the Rice Museum and the Blasco Ibáñez house all keep. Sundays and public holidays run 10:00 to 14:00 and Monday is closed.
Three dates carry morning-only hours and are worth noting: 18 March, 24 December and 31 December. Full closures come to four: 1 and 6 January, 1 May and 25 December.
Frequently asked questions about the Valencia History Museum
What is inside the Valencia History Museum?
A permanent display in eight sections running from Roman Valentia to the present, mounted inside the reservoir that first stored the city’s drinking water in 1850. The eleven vaults and 250 brick pillars holding the roof up are part of the visit.
Where is the Valencia History Museum?
Beside the Parque de Cabecera at the western end of the Turia park, though the two municipal sources disagree on the address. Visit València gives a street in Mislata and the council listing gives Camí Vell de Xirivella 1 in Valencia.
How much is the Valencia History Museum?
Two euros general and 1 euro reduced for groups, Carnet Jove students, pensioners and children aged 7 to 12, on the Visit València listing. Sundays and public holidays are free, as at the other municipal museums in the city.
Why is the museum inside a water reservoir?
Because the reservoir survived. Built in 1850 to hold the city’s first drinking water supply, it was covered with 11 vaults on 250 brick pillars, and that vaulted hall became the space the city later used to display its own history.
Does the Valencia History Museum close at lunchtime?
No. It runs 10:00 to 19:00 straight through from Tuesday to Saturday, unlike the Almudín, the Rice Museum and the Blasco Ibáñez house, which all shut from 14:00 to 15:00. There is no shared rule, so each listing has to be checked on its own.
Two euros for twenty centuries under 250 brick pillars, at a door each municipal listing places in a different town.