Las Fallas is an annual festival held in March in the beautiful city of Valencia in Spain. It is essentially a street party that lasts for days on end. Like so many Spanish traditions, I was completely ignorant of it until coming to Spain for the year. It is a very bizarre festival, but at the heart of it is fun!
Each neighbourhood of Valencia spends the year constructing a beautiful and elaborate statue called a Falles. These are often satirical, and each one has its own theme. They can cost up to 100,000 euros to make! We weren’t around for the craziest part – at the end of the festival all statues are burnt to the ground! And then, they start building next years statues!
The sunny weather was in stark contrast to my Burgos – I certainly enjoyed wearing a lighter jacket instead of my winter coat constantly!
A daily event was the Mascletas. At 2pm in a main square, hundreds of firecrackers and fireworks were set off, resulting in what sounded like A LOT of gunfire. It is an extremely popular event – Las Fallas seems to be a lot about noise as the kids in the street would have their own boxes of firecrackers to set off all the time. It is not a trip for peace and quiet!
As it is a street party, drinking in the street becomes perfectly acceptable. Mojitos and caipirinhas were very popular!
The night of course had its attractions. Lots of fireworks were set off – the display differed from UK displays as even more fireworks were set off at the same time to ensure we had plenty of noise!
One area of Valencia (Azorin) also had twilight streets – beautifully lit up and oh so magical!
The next day we viewed the cathedral – that claims to own the holy grail (as do a few other places). It costs 5 euros to enter and we were low on cash, but the cathedral itself is as beautiful as any other cathedral in Spain!
And what better way to finish the trip than to eat traditional Valencian paella? Valencia is where paella originates, and although the seafood paella is very popular (and my favourite), in Valencia they use chicken, rabbit,beans, and even snails! (Not this one though) Delicious!!
Inside a Mind 