Museu de Belles Arts de València

Behind a blue-tiled dome across the river from Valencia's old centre sits the second great picture gallery in Spain, ranked after the Prado in Madrid. The building began as a seminary college in the 17th century and took in the city's art after the museum was founded in 1913.

Its foundation is medieval: one of the finest collections of Valencian Gothic panel painting anywhere, the gold-ground altarpieces made when Valencia was a rich Mediterranean trading power in the 14th and 15th centuries. Later Spanish masters follow, among them Ribera, Goya and a rare Velazquez self-portrait, one of only a handful of times the painter recorded his own face.

The museum is also the home ground of Joaquin Sorolla, the Valencian painter of sunlit beach scenes, several of which hang here in the city where he was born.