Exhibition «Rubens. The flowering of a genius»

The Museu de Belles Arts occupies the old Colegio de San Pío V across the Turia riverbed — the building with the blue-tiled dome you can see from the bridge. It is the city's old-master collection, admission is free, and that includes this exhibition, which runs until 4 October.

What you are looking at

Rubens was the most influential painter of the northern Baroque and ran a very large workshop, which means his work makes more sense as a process than as a set of finished pictures. That is why the oil sketches matter in a show like this one: small, fast panels painted by his own hand to settle a composition before the workshop scaled it up to a full canvas. They are usually the liveliest things in the room precisely because nobody meant them to be hung. The exhibition also brings together reconstructions of canvases that no longer survive, according to the official information.

When to go, and getting there

It is a ten-minute walk from the cathedral: cross the riverbed on the Puente de la Trinidad and you are there. Two things visitors get caught by — public museums in Valencia generally close on Mondays, and the middle of Saturday and Sunday is the busiest stretch of the week. Early on a Tuesday you can have whole rooms to yourself. Check the day's hours on the museum's own site before setting off.

What is next door

The museum backs onto the Jardines de Viveros, the city's largest park, and the small, formal Jardines de Monforte are a few minutes further, with their own restricted opening hours. The Torres de Serranos are back across the bridge. If you are stringing museums together, start with which ones are free and which deserve a long visit; the building's own page is at Museo de Bellas Artes.