Las Fallas - Valencia

If you are one of those people loving the sight of flames and the smell of gunpowder, the Valencian famous festival known as ´Las Fallas´ is the event for you. This unique celebration is characterised for being smoky, loud, crazy and rowdy while the city is literally set ablaze.

This Valencia well known event began as a feast day to commemorate St Joseph, the patron of Valencia and the saint of carpenters. The Valencia Fallas have developed into a five day multifaceted festival also celebrating ´fire´ with a population swelling to three million of flame loving people. In Valenciá (the co-official language of the region of Valencia), Las Fallas mean ´the fires´.

Las Fallas´ centre of attraction are the creation and destruction of the ninots, which are statues made of huge cardboard, wood and plaster located over 350 places like parks and key intersections all over Valencia city. The lifelike ninots frequently and satirically portray current events and bawdy scenes (Spanish celebrities and lampooning corrupt politicians are especially liked). Crafted by neighbourhood organizations, they are quite expensive and take about six months to build. Many ninots are quite a few stories tall with cranes needed to move them into position.

        

The ninots remain in place until St Joseph´s Day, 19^th March, when they are burned during “La Cremá.” Young men with axes chop holes into the ninots and put fireworks inside them in the early evening. While the street lights are turned off the spectators chant; then at exactly the stroke of midnight all the ninots are set on fire. The local firemen have devised over the years unique ways to protect Valencia´s buildings from burning alongside the ninots: for instance, by covering storefronts neatly with fireproof tarps. Also one of the ninots is spared from burning into flames each year by the crowds´ vote and will be exhibited in the local ninot museum along other years´ favourites.

Janet Morton, a pyromaniac and traveller mentions that Las Fallas are very difficult to be described as they are intensely cathartic. She also says that they are like a mix between the Fourth of July, a bawdy Disneyland and an apocalyptic end of the world.

The Valencia Fallas festival origins are somewhat obscure, though they are thought to be the evolution of pagan ceremonies of the celebration held on the planting season and spring onset. Also in the 1500s the city of Valencia only used street lights during the long winter nights, street lamps that were hung on wooden structures or ´parots´. When the days were longer, since the parots were not needed, they were customarily burned on St Joseph´s Day. Even now Las Fallas have kept their working-class satirical roots, while the upper classes and the faint-of-heart often leave the city when it is the actual time for this celebration.

Apart from burning the ninots, there are also other activities during the Valencia Fallas festivities; there are a wide range of beauty pageants, paella contests, parades and bullfights daily all throughout the city. Besides, during the days leading up to "la cremá", improvised displays of fireworks happen.

Finally another highlight of Las Fallas in Valencia are the 2 pm daily "mascletá" held in the Town Hall square, where the ground literally shakes for the 10 minutes following the ignition of a huge pile of firecrackers.