The Albufera is where paella was invented, and the day after a marathon is exactly when to go looking for it. A freshwater coastal lagoon separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow sandbar, ringed by rice paddies worked since the Arab period, it sits close enough to Valencia to manage on legs that do not want to be managed.
Getting There
EMT bus Lines 24 or 25 run from central Valencia to El Palmar, the village at the heart of the Albufera, in around 45 minutes. Buses run every 30 to 40 minutes and the fare is paid on board. A taxi covers the same distance in roughly 25 minutes for runners who would rather not stand at a bus stop the day after 42.195 km.
The Lagoon
December strips the Albufera back to its working parts. The rice has been harvested, the paddies are flooded, and the lagoon carries its winter bird population: grey herons working the shallows, marsh harriers over open water, coots and ducks scattered across the surface. Flat-bottomed boats, barques, cross from the El Palmar dock toward the sandbar that separates the lagoon from the sea, a 30 to 45 minute trip that needs no advance booking. The boatmen work the dock through the day.
El Palmar and the Paella
El Palmar is a village of around 800 people, built almost entirely around the lagoon and the dish it produces. Restaurants along the main street cook Valencian paella over orange wood in wide, shallow pans: rabbit, chicken, sometimes duck, runner beans, butter beans, tomato, saffron and short-grain rice grown in the surrounding paddies. No seafood in the original recipe, no peas, no chorizo. Order for 1pm or 1:30pm; the pan takes 20 to 25 minutes and the good places fill fast. The socarrat, the toasted rice crust on the base of the pan, is the marker of a paella worth eating. Ask to see it before it is served.
Getting Back
Return buses to Valencia run through the afternoon into early evening from the same stop the outbound bus used. A boat trip in the morning, lunch at 1pm, and a mid-afternoon bus back covers the whole excursion in five to six hours without pushing a body that ran a marathon the day before.