Manises

Manises sits 8 kilometers west of Valencia, where ceramic workshops have operated since the 1300s. You'll see this craft everywhere—tiles cover building facades, park benches, and even the airport walls. Valencia Airport occupies part of the town, but Manises feels separate, with its own festivals and working factories. Walk past the Iglesia Parroquial de San Juan Bautista to spot its shimmering ceramic dome. The free Municipal Museum of Ceramics displays centuries of local pottery, and Parque Els Filtres uses colorful tiles to tell stories about Roman water systems and 20th-century aviation history.

Ceramics History and Workshops

For over 700 years, Manises potters have shaped clay using methods brought by Muslim artisans. By the 1400s, local workshops created plates and tiles with Gothic patterns and metallic glazes for European nobles. The Buyl family, who ruled Manises during this period, ordered pieces stamped with their bull symbol—some are now in New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Factories like AVEC – Gremio still produce tiles today using coal-fired kilns. At La Cerámica Valenciana de Casa José Gimeno Martínez, you can watch painters add detailed floral designs to plates ordered by restaurants and hotels. Many house entrances here have blue-and-gold ceramic address plaques made in the 1600s.

Municipal Museum of Ceramics

This museum occupies an 18th-century mansion once owned by a wealthy ceramic merchant family. The ground floor displays medieval tiles used in palaces, including rust-red socarrat pieces from the 1400s. Upstairs, you’ll find 19th-century tableware with bold orange and green patterns inspired by Valencian textiles. One room contains a chair entirely covered in broken tile fragments—staff say it was found in the building’s attic, but its purpose remains unknown. Recent exhibitions have included modern sculptures made from melted glass and clay. Free guided tours on Saturdays explain how artisans achieve metallic finishes using silver and copper oxides.

Iglesia Parroquial de San Juan Bautista

Built between 1738 and 1751, this church mixes curved Baroque doorways with a neoclassical bell tower. Its main dome uses thousands of ceramic tiles that shift from green to gold depending on the light. Inside, the altar features 1920s ceramic panels showing Saint John the Baptist alongside geometric shapes similar to those in Granada’s Alhambra. The church usually opens from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM except during July and August. Next door, the square hosts pottery markets every July 16-17 where you can buy hand-painted bowls or tile coasters.

Avenida Blasco Ibáñez Tile Displays

Manises’ main street contains 12 large ceramic panels based on novels by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, a Valencian writer. Each panel uses over 200 tiles to recreate scenes like bullfights from Blood and Sand or World War I battles from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Nearby, the former Ceramics School building has a facade decorated with tile roses and pointed Gothic windows. Look for the blue-tiled monument at the avenue’s center, where locals often take wedding photos. Several open-door workshops along this street let you watch potters shape vases on foot-powered wheels from the 1920s.

Parque Els Filtres and Photography Museum

Els Filtres park uses 50 cartoon tiles to explain how Romans built water filters here and how the airport expanded in the 1980s. Children receive maps to find specific tiles, like one showing a medieval potter carrying jugs to a kiln. The adjacent El Arte building, a converted 1903 factory, now houses a tourist office and the MUMAF museum with early 20th-century cameras. Climb the metal staircase to the rooftop terrace for clear views of Valencia’s City of Arts and Sciences complex 9 kilometers away.

Ceramics Festival and Workshops

During the July 16-17 festival, factories like Cerámicas Ferrotécnica offer free tours showing how they make bathroom tiles. On July 18, parade floats throw small ceramic whistles and figurines to crowds—catch one to take home a free souvenir. In September, workshops like Taller de Cerámica Alcalde let visitors paint their own plates using traditional cobalt blue pigments. Every two years (2024, 2026), the international ceramics biennial exhibits experimental pieces like sound-emitting clay sculptures or tile mosaics made from recycled glass.

Getting to Manises and Airport Tips

Valencia Airport’s Terminal 1 has ceramic murals of orange trees—look for them near the check-in desks if your flight is delayed. To reach Manises from Valencia, take the metro from Xàtiva station; Line 3 takes 18 minutes. Buses 90 and 150 stop at Plaza del Obispo Amigó, a 3-minute walk from the ceramics museum. If driving, park near the 45-meter brick chimney on Calle Huerta, the last remaining structure from the 19th-century La Ceramo factory.