Valencia Marathon 2026 Road Closures: How to Get Around the City on 6 December If You're Not Running
Start at 8:15, 36,000 runners and one long loop from the Ciudad de las Artes to the Cabanyal closed until mid-afternoon. What shuts when, how to cross the course on foot, which buses and trams stop, and where to put the car.
Sunday 6 December, twenty to eight. You go down for bread and the avenue at the end of your street has turned into a corridor of metal fencing. A Policía Local (city police) car sits across the junction with its lights going, a helicopter is holding somewhere over the old riverbed, and the baker shrugs at you through the half-open door: Es el maratón, hombre. ¿No lo sabías? — it's the marathon, man, didn't you know?
Nobody warns newcomers, because in València the marathon counts as common knowledge, like Fallas: once a year the city lends a 42-kilometre loop of itself to 36,000 runners and asks everyone else to go around: from about 7:15 to 15:15 the loop from the Ciudad de las Artes through the Alameda, the Cabanyal and the old centre is closed to cars. For half of Spain this Sunday is also the middle of the December puente, the long weekend. València works on Monday, as you'll see below, but the city empties anyway.
What happens when: Thursday to Sunday
The 46th Maratón Valencia Trinidad Alfonso Zurich is on Sunday 6 December 2026. By the race rules the gun goes at 8:15, in nine waves ten minutes apart, fastest first. Each runner has 5h30 from crossing the start line, and the organiser closes the course at 15:15. The programme around that one morning takes four days.
| When | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Thu 3 Dec, 17:00–21:00 | Expo 42K opens: bib pick-up and the race fair, free to walk in | Feria Valencia, Av. de les Fires |
| Fri 4 Dec, 9:00–21:00 | Expo 42K, full day | Feria Valencia |
| Sat 5 Dec, 9:00–19:00 | Expo 42K, last day; no bibs are handed out on Sunday | Feria Valencia |
| Sat 5 Dec, morning | Children's mini-marathon on the Alameda | Alameda |
| Sun 6 Dec, 8:15–9:35 | Nine waves leave the Plaça de la Marató | Pont de Montolivet |
| Sun 6 Dec, from about 10:15 | The first men finish; the course record is 2:01:48 | lake of the Ciudad de las Artes |
| Sun 6 Dec, 15:15 | The course closes; streets reopen behind the last runners; EMT back to normal around 16:00 | whole loop |
6 December is Constitution Day, and in 2026 it falls on a Sunday. Regions may move a Sunday holiday to the Monday, and Madrid, Andalusia, Aragon and several others do. The Valencian Community does not: the regional calendar for 2026 lists Tuesday 8 December, the Immaculate Conception, and nothing on the 7th. So on Monday you go to work while half of Spain sleeps in, and on Tuesday everybody is off. The region-by-region table is in our holiday calendar for 2026.
Sunday plus holiday means most supermarkets are shut on 6 December. The bakeries and the bars inside the loop open — they have the families of 36,000 runners to feed — but if you need anything heavier than bread, buy it on Saturday.
Where the course goes
The start is the Plaça de la Marató, the open space by the Pont de Montolivet, the bridge at the Ciudad de las Artes. The organiser describes the loop in three strokes: a flat circuit that passes through the Cabanyal, the old fishermen's quarter by the sea, continues into the historic centre, and finishes on the pasarela azul, the blue pontoon laid across the lake between the Hemisfèric and the Umbracle. In between it uses the Alameda, the long avenue along the old riverbed, the seafront at the Malvarrosa, and the ring of streets around the centre where the pedestrian crossings are set up: Xàtiva, Colón, the Plaza del Ayuntamiento.
The kilometre-by-kilometre map is on the Recorrido (route) page of the organiser's site, Valencia Ciudad del Running, with a Google Maps version you can open on your phone and a Strava file. Find your street on it. Inside the loop, on it, or outside: that decides your weekend, starting with whether the car has to move on Saturday.
What the organiser does not publish is the hour each street closes and reopens. That comes from the Ajuntament's traffic control centre, the Centro de Gestión de Tráfico, about a week before the race, and the organiser mirrors it on its Info ciudadana page, the residents' information page, and in Waze. As I write this in October 2026, that page still shows last year's plan, dated 7 December 2025.
Road closures: the 2025 pattern, hour by hour
This is the plan the Ajuntament published for 7 December 2025, and it is almost word for word the plan for 1 December 2024. Expect 2026 to follow it with a street or two shifted.
On Friday night, from 22:00, the Pont de Montolivet closes in both directions and Professor López Piñero closes towards the centre, so the start arch can go up. The avenues Germans Maristes and Institut Obrer de València close intermittently until 6:00 on Saturday, with the side streets open and garages reachable.
Saturday starts early on the Alameda: from about 6:00 to 14:00 it is closed between Plaza de Europa and the Pont de l'Assut de l'Or for the children's mini-marathon. In the evening the start zone shuts down for good. Alcalde Reig closes towards the city from 21:00, López Piñero again from 22:00, Maristes and Institut Obrer from 22:00 straight through to Sunday 14:00. A car parked on those avenues has to leave on Saturday afternoon.
On Sunday the whole course closes about an hour before the gun, at 7:15, and reopens street by street behind the last runners. The city repeats one trick every year: the underpass from Menéndez Pidal to Tirso de Molina runs in reverse, south to north, so that cars trapped on the wrong side have a way out. Last year that took 510 Policía Local officers plus the volunteers of Protección Civil, the civil protection service, and the traffic control centre posted every opening on X as it happened.
If your garage is inside the loop, here's how: the Friday-night closures let you in and out; the Sunday ones don't. Drive the car a few streets beyond the line on the organiser's map on Saturday afternoon — Alcalde Reig shuts at 21:00 — park it, and walk back.
How to cross the course on foot
On Colón and Xàtiva the loop is a wall of runners for about three hours; at the start it's longer. The city sets up staffed crossing points: in 2024 there were five — the metro underpass at Xàtiva, Colón at its junctions with Russafa, Sorní and Porta de la Mar, and the Plaza del Ayuntamiento — and the 2025 plan named Xàtiva and the two Colón points at Sorní and Porta de la Mar. Each one has Protección Civil volunteers holding a tape. They let a batch of pedestrians through whenever a gap opens between groups.
While the main field is passing, Colón is dense and the waits are longer; once the back of the race has spread out, you'll barely stop. Outside the official points there is no crossing. Ducking under the fence in front of a pack earns you a shouted ¡Por el paso, por favor! — use the crossing, please — from a volunteer and, if you're unlucky, a runner.
The Xàtiva crossing is the metro underpass itself, so it works even when the street above is full: enter by the Estació del Nord, come out across Xàtiva, and you've crossed the course without touching it.
Buses, trams and the metro
EMT, the city bus company, changes 32 lines from Friday until the end of the race. On race Sunday in 2025 seventeen lines didn't run at all: C1, C2, 19, 30, 31, 32, 40, 67, 70, 71, 73, 81, 92, 93, 94, 95 and 98. Three lines, 35, 99 and C3, were kept running to the start zone and the Ciudad de las Artes for runners and spectators. EMT says its buses stay on detours until about 16:00, and the live list is under Última hora (latest news) in the EMT app and on its website.
FGV cuts four tram lines for the morning, because the course crosses their tracks on the way to the sea. In 2025 line 4 ran only between Mas del Rosari and Pont de Fusta from 8:00 to 11:20, with no service on to Doctor Lluch. Line 6 stopped from 7:30 to 11:20. Line 8 started its day at 12:30. Line 10 ran only between Alacant and Amado Granell-Montolivet until about 10:00, then the full route. Amado Granell-Montolivet is the stop next to the start bridge, so it still gets you to the start; the Ciutat de les Arts stop opens after ten. FGV adds trams from 8:15 for people going to watch.
The underground metro lines run as on any Sunday. If you fly out of Manises on marathon morning, the metro to the airport works as normal; a taxi from inside the loop may not reach you at all, and one from outside will spend a long time going around. The same goes for Cabify and Uber. Valenbisi and your own bike work fine, with one limitation your feet don't have: at the staffed crossings you walk the bike through. Our guide to cycling in Valencia explains why the Turia riverbed path is the usual answer, and on this morning it's a good one.
If you must drive on Sunday morning
If you need a car on Sunday morning, use the runners' car parks; nobody checks for a bib. The organiser opens them from 6:00 at the Oceanogràfic, the Aqua shopping centre and El Saler, at the Cementerio General with bus 99 into town, and in Natzaret with tram 4. They're all outside the loop, and they fill up before the first wave. For the hour-by-hour openings follow the traffic control centre's account on X and the organiser's closures layer in Waze.
If you'd rather watch
Some years you give up and watch. The start at the Pont de Montolivet at 8:15 is the loudest ten minutes of the day. The Alameda is wider, with trees and fewer people per metre of fence. Mid-morning the seafront at the Cabanyal and the Malvarrosa fills up, and the bars on the Passeig Marítim serve breakfast right to the barrier; the centre has the bands and the crowds. The finish on the blue pontoon you watch from the lakeside at the Ciudad de las Artes, for free; the first men arrive around 10:15 if someone is near the record.
A terrace on the Passeig Marítim or in Russafa, inside the loop, is the comfortable option: those bars open before the first wave and stay busy until the last one has passed. If you've never ordered breakfast at a Spanish bar counter, our guide to bar culture has the lines.
What to shout: ¡Vamos! (go!), ¡Ánimo! (keep going!), ¡Venga, que ya queda poco! (come on, not much left) and, for anyone flying past, ¡Qué máquina! (what a machine).
What you'll hear around you: dorsal (the bib), cajón or oleada (start box, wave), liebre (a pacer, literally a hare), avituallamiento (an aid station — there's one every five kilometres from km 5, with extras at 32 and 37.5), el muro (the wall), meta (the finish) and coche escoba, the "broom car" that collects anyone reaching km 25 after 12:57.
The Spanish you need lives on the street, not in the textbook
How2Spanish teaches the phrases you'll say this week in València — at the bakery, at the bar counter, at the fence on marathon morning — and makes you repeat them until they come out on their own.
Registration takes less than a minute. Trial points included.
The dress rehearsal: the half marathon in October
If you were in València on Sunday 25 October 2026, you have already seen December's plan at a smaller scale. The same organiser ran the Medio Maratón that morning, with the gun at 8:25 on the Avenida de Tarongers, on a shorter loop mostly north of the riverbed, and the method was the one the city repeats in December: fencing the night before, buses on detours, trams cut, volunteers at the crossings. Whatever your street did that morning, expect it again on 6 December.
Checklist for the weekend
- Thursday. Open the Recorrido map and find your street.
- Friday. The Ajuntament's closure plan is out by now: read it for your streets, and screenshot your bus line's Sunday detour in the EMT app.
- Saturday. Shop for Sunday and Monday morning: in València Monday the 7th is a working day, Tuesday the 8th is the holiday. Move the car beyond the loop if it lives inside it. If you're going to the Expo, Saturday is the last day and it closes at 19:00; there are no bibs on Sunday.
- Sunday before 7:15. Last chance to drive across. After that it's the metro at Xàtiva, or your feet.
FAQ
Is Monday 7 December 2026 a public holiday in Valencia?
No. Constitution Day, 6 December, falls on a Sunday in 2026, and the Valencian Community's official calendar does not move it to the Monday — Madrid, Andalusia and several other regions do. Tuesday 8 December is a national holiday everywhere.
What time do the streets reopen after the Valencia Marathon?
In the order the race passes: the Alameda and the seafront first, then the centre, and the start and finish area at the Ciudad de las Artes last, because the arches and the pontoon have to come down. The official end of the race is 15:15 (each runner has 5h30 from the start line, and the last wave leaves at 9:35); EMT buses are back on their normal routes around 16:00.
Can I get to the airport on marathon morning?
Yes, by metro: the underground lines, including the ones to Manises airport, run as on any Sunday. A taxi or a Cabify from inside the closed loop may not be able to reach you, and one from outside will take a long detour, so leave earlier than you think and go down into the metro.
Is the Expo 42K open to people who aren't running?
Yes, and it's free. It's at Feria Valencia, Av. de les Fires, on Thursday 3 December from 17:00 to 21:00, Friday from 9:00 to 21:00 and Saturday from 9:00 to 19:00. Get there by metro line 2 to Carolines/Fira, a ten-minute walk away, by tram line 4 to the gate, or by bus 62.
Where is the best place to watch the finish?
From the lakeside at the Ciudad de las Artes, which is open and free: the runners finish on the blue pontoon across the water between the Hemisfèric and the Umbracle. Tram line 10 reaches Amado Granell-Montolivet, next to the start bridge, throughout the morning and the Ciutat de les Arts stop after about 10:00; bus lines 35, 99 and C3 are kept running to the area on race day. Arrive before 10:00 if you want to see the leaders.
I live inside the loop and have a car. What do I do?
Take it out on Saturday and leave it a few streets beyond the loop on the organiser's route map; the Saturday closures around the start are listed above. From about 7:15 on Sunday nothing drives in or out until the race has passed your street. If you only need the car later on Sunday, wait: by mid-afternoon the city is open again.