If you visit in Valencia around the middle of March, then you will find yourself in one of the most visually and audibly stunning festivals that Europe has to offer. Las Fallas is a traditional event that explodes across the city from the 15th to 19th March each year and it will quite literally blow your socks off!
It’s a celebration held in commemoration of Saint Joseph (patron
saint of Valencia) and pretty much translates as ‘the torches’; the locals will spend months putting together stunningly intricate monuments that represent local, national and international characters, typically in a satirical way. Huge constructions made of wood, cardboard and polystyrene… think of huge Disney like structures that spectacularly fail the PC control of the American family brand.
Hundreds of these fallas appear across Valencia at every intersection in most neighbourhoods, becoming a focal point for four days of sight-seeing and partying before being set fire to in a spectacular blaze on the final night (La Crema). We timed our visit for the last day of the festival, leaving our hire car at the airport and catching the metro into town (as most roads in the centre are blocked off). We made our festival base at the A.C. Colon hotel, perfectly situated on the main shopping street and just a few streets back from the Ajuntament – well located to dip in and out of the festival crowds and to get a siesta when we felt the need coming on. Luckily for us, we had a veteran Fallero to guide us around for part of the day – Aitor – and give us the best tips on what to see and do…hence you will now get that from us.
Post Apocalyptic Ajuntament
Start your festival by getting to the Placa Ajuntament and reserving your spot right at the front barrier to see (hear / feel) the 2pm mascleta. We arrived around midday, and when the weather is nice, and with a few beers picked up from the street vendors, a couple of hours will pass by pretty fast… just don’t drink too much beer otherwise you’ll lose your place heading off to find the toilet! The mascleta is basically a firecracker barrage that should create a rhythm to the exploding madness; typically in four parts – start, body, the earthquake (!) and the air show. In the UK we have Bonfire night in November, and in the Netherlands the spectacle is to watch the Dutch going through millions of euros in a beautiful way on New Year’s eve, so some firecrackers during the day seems a bit of a strange proposition. However, it is amazing, the mascleta kicks off and immediately the world is drowned in explosions. The local tip is not to cover your ears, but rather open your mouth so the shock wave of the explosions is equalised, and as outlined above, the show goes through its four stages for about 10 minutes, building and building in force until you think your ears can take no more and the ground does indeed shake like an earthquake and you feel the vibrations in your chest; the experience is amazing and we managed to walk away with no permanent damage.
Some satirical targets are a bit more popular than others….
We had a spot of lunch at the excellent Mirona – be sure to reserve during las Fallas) otherwise you’ll have to be lucky like us to get a last spot at the bar. We then visited as many of the fallas as we could, starting around L’Eixample (where else for a good example of a Fallas!) where there was literally a Falla
on every crossroads and working our way round to Falla Cuba that is where the night time spot is the pace to be (see later); Conveto de Jerusalen…just a bit too popular as the tight square means that you are going to be packed in with very slow going. As you walk about the streets (pretty much all the streets are closed off to traffic during Las Fallas) you will find yourself in another sort of traffic jam, made up of hundreds of Falleros in traditional outfits – especially women in voluminous silk dresses that look like life-sized dolls, teetering on high heels and balancing their perfectly coiffed hairstyles to parade around the city.
As night falls, you need to get yourself back down to Falla Cuba,
where around 9pm they will have a sound and light show in the street, where the thousand of lights surrounding this falla start dancing to the music; naturally Lyssa and I just wandered into this by chance, but you are forewarned to get yourself a good spot among the crowds who gather for this. Don’t stop for dinner this evening, rather get your food from the ubiquitous sellers on the streets where you can find a stall for almost anything you desire, but make sure you boost your energy levels with the sugar bomb of Buñuelos and chocolate.
Before
The Cremà (originally from the Valencian for “burning”) is the finale of the festival where all these beautiful structures get put to the torch…it’s kind of sad to see them go up in smoke, but also it creates some wonderful scenes and realistically, if they were not burnt then Valencia will have one huge stockpile of satirical caricatures from all past years with no room left for your visit next year. Typically the pyromania starts around 10 pm with the burning of the falla infantil followed by the main fallas around midnight. The last Fallas to go should be the grand prize winner for the year and the municipal Falla in the main square of the town hall. For us, we had already staked out our spot at one of the most impressive locations for a Falla at Plaça del Pilar… set in a tiny square with a 15 metre high elaborate construction pushing up against the centuries old buildings and the church of Senora del Pilar. The downside to this perfect spot is that you need to get here relatively early (~10pm) and then
After!
wait whilst all the safety preparations are put in place to make sure this part of the city does not go up in smoke – fireproof covering for the buildings, disconnecting electrics, getting the Valencian fire brigade on standby. Eventually by 1.30am, with a very restless crowd, the starting fireworks finally exploded and we descended straight into Dante’s Inferno… with devilish shapes dancing in the flames, the crowd pushed back by the heat of the fire and embers raining down on the crowd. Make sure you wear a hat, some glasses, and leave the nylon at home and you’ll be fine, the firemen are also dousing the flames and in part the crowd, so things are relatively under control. And so after 15 mins, all those months of hard work, days of exhibition and hours of waiting (for us) the show was over – sad, but also it means that there will be an even bigger and better show next year for you all to see!
Final note: you can also find Las Fallas in a few other cities – our local town of Alzira has some equally amazing fallas but without the crowds of Valencia… we managed to stop by during the day, but the full event is for next year which we’ll be sure to keep you posted on. Alicante also has a similar celebration in June… again, the story is to come.