Museo del Arroz

This guide to the Museo del Arroz in Valencia opens in 1906, when the Umbert family wired their new rice mill straight to electricity, skipping steam entirely, an unusual choice for the era. It follows the problem rice millers had faced for a thousand years around the Albufera lagoon, moving a harvest through six stages of processing that once took armies of workers hauling sacks up and down stairs, and the trick the Umberts borrowed from grain silos to solve it. Along the way you will notice the machinery's odd flourishes, valve knobs cast as roosters and small sculpted figures worked into the stair ironwork. Look closely at the belts and gears still turning around you.