Living in Camí Reial, Valencia: a neighborhood guide

Living in Camí Reial

Camí Reial (play_arrow) is the largest barrio of the Jesús district, at the southern edge of Valencia. Its name in Castilian is Camino Real, and the Ajuntament's statistics write it Camí Real. It wraps almost all the way round Sant Marcel·lí and borders La Creu Coberta and L'Hort de Senabre to the north, Favara and Sant Isidre, in the Patraix district, to the west, and Malilla, across the railway lines, to the east. To the south, the new bed of the Turia and the V-30 separate it from the Pobles del Sud.

Camí reial means "royal road" in Valencian. The barrio takes its name from the old royal road from Valencia to Xàtiva and Madrid, which survives as Carrer de Sant Vicent Màrtir and its continuation, Carrer de José Soto Micó, running north to south through the eastern part of the barrio. Most of the housing grew up along that road.

According to the Ajuntament's municipal register, 3,957 people lived in Camí Reial on 1 January 2025, on 147.7 hectares, up from 2,668 in 1991. Much of that land is not housing at all: the west of the barrio holds Valencia's main municipal cemetery and the municipal funeral home, and the high-speed rail line enters its tunnel to the Joaquín Sorolla station here. The east is residential, with older houses along the royal road and newer blocks beside them.

Transport and trade-offs: Sant Isidre metro station, on lines 1, 2 and 7, sits at the western edge, beside the Sant Isidre Cercanías station on line C3, and EMT buses run along the royal road into the centre. The barrio is spread out and cut up by railway lines and ring roads, so distances on foot are long and everyday shops are thinner than in its neighbours. Sant Marcel·lí sits in the middle of it, and La Creu Coberta lies to the north.