Stadium introduction
Built next door to the site of San Miguel de los Reyes monastery, Estadio Ciudad opened on the 9th September 1969 when the home side entertained cross town rivals Valencia CF, who managed to spoil the party on this occasion.
Plans to relocate away from Vallejo Campo were first formulated in the 1950s but as is the case with most football stadium projects, it took over a decade to get the necessarily approval from the local council, raise the required capital and review construction proposals from various companies.
When the then 30,000 capacity stadium opened, it was originally referred to as Estadio Antonio Román, in tribute to the club President of the time who shepherded Levante’s relocation, but like a lot of Spanish stadium’s named after club figures, as time passes, fans eventually end up campaigning for name changes. Nou Estadi was a popular choice until fans eventually settled on the current name “Ciudad de Valencia”.
As Levante have remained a smallish club in the grand scheme of La Liga and Spanish football, the stadium has remained relatively unchanged since its inauguration, with the stadium being converted to fully seated in 1997 following a mandate from the LFP for safety reasons which naturally reduced the capacity by around 5,000 or so.
Still, this redevelopment benefited the club in the long run with Les Granotes (The Frogs) participating in the UEFA Europa League in the 2012/2013 season which would have required some redevelopment to meet UEFA standards. The club reached the round of 16 after beating Olympiacos before being defeated by Rubin Kazan.
Travel guide
DRIVING
If travelling up from either the South or Western parts of the city look for signs for “Ronda Nord” and simply follow until you see Levante’s stadium on your right hand side. If coming from the North, you’ll probably be coming from out of town along the motorway Autovía V-21/E15 (north-east).
The address for satnavs is as follows:
San Vicente de Paul 44, 46019 Valencia
Car Parks
There appears to be over 1,500 spaces within the adjacent Centro Commercial Arena Multiespacio which is free for 2 hours however anything after this will cost you between €5.00 – €10.00 euros.
Other than that you will have to scramble around the nearby streets to find somewhere to leave your car.
TRAIN AND METRO
The largest railway station in Valencia is called as Estación del Norte and is slightly south of the Catedral and historic centre. Around 4km away from the stadium, you can either choose to walk it or catch either metro line 3 there which should take you no more than 20 minutes.
Head in the direction of Rafelbunyol and look to get off at the Machado stop which is less than 10 minutes away, with the walk taking you past Burger King.
Note: When you are there you may see the station referred to as Estació del Nord which is a slight variant of the aforementioned spelling. This is because some of the signs may be in Valencian dialect which has slight variances with “national” Spanish.
BUS
On match days buses usually depart every 20 minutes or so and take a similar amount of time to get to Ciutat de Valencia stadium.
Look for either Bus 70 or Bus 11 which leave from either Pl. de Ajuntament or Palau de Justícia and try to get off at Alfahuir – Cercle de Belles Arts or Alfahuir Germans Machado which leaves you in a similar place to where the Metro line would take you.
AIRPORTS
Valencia/Manises Airport is about 10km West of the city centre and around 14km away from Estadi Ciutat de Valencia. As the 8th busiest airport in Spain, there are plenty of European destinations you can fly from and too, with cheap airline providers ensuring you can take a weekend away relatively cheap
Once you have landed, you should get to the city in no more than 30-40 minutes depending on mode of transport taken; you have the choice of the A-3 Autovía motorway, bus services or the metro lines 3/5m, all of which are affordable and efficient.
How to get to the Stadium