Fiesta en Valencia!

My school took a weekend trip to the city of Valencia, Spain's third largest city located on the Mediterranean coast. We were lucky enough to visit during the city's most celebrated holiday, Las Fallas. It is a unique, crazy, and HUGE fiesta that has expanded from its original holiday of St. Joseph's Day (March 19) to a 2-week long party filled with loud firecrackers, food and fire. (right: churreria & a big falla in background)

The holiday originated from the celebration of the carpenter Joseph by forming bonfires to clear out all junk wood and materials from the previous year. It was like a spring cleaning for the Valencians and over time more and more people participated. Las Fallas literally means "the fires" in Valencian (yes they have their own language) and has become an important tradition in the city. The focus of the fiesta is the creation and destruction of ninots/Fallas which are huge cardboard, wood, paper-machè and plaster statues. The fallas are extremely lifelike and usually depict satirical scenes and current events. The labor intensive fallas, often costing up to 700,00 euros(!!!), are funded by neighborhood organizations and takes the artist almost the entire year to construct! There are hundreds of fallas, some displayed at several stories tall, are located in over 350 key intersections and parks around the city. (below: fallas!)

So basically they celebrate for 2 weeks with parades, displaying the fallas, firecrackers being set off EVERYWHERE, and finally on March 19th at midnight when the whole city is filled with people, they turn off all the street lamps and the plus-300 fallas are set to fire and burned!! Then they have a huge arial fireworks show to complete the fiesta.


Unfortunately we didn't visit for the main event of the burnings, but I was able to see the Folklore parade on Saturday night and Sunday I experienced Mascletá, an amazing fireworks and firecracker display which is set up in the main plaza of the city. The Valencians love the noise and energy related to firecrackers so there is a huge emphasis on them. The Mascletá was like nothing I have ever experienced, the streets were jam-packed with people and and the noise HUGE noise and speed, creating a giant cloud of smoke in the streets. I loved every second of it, I wish I could have stayed for the actual burning of the fallas!! (left: crowded plaza, above: smoky skies after Mascletá).

So the weekend consisted of lots of exploring the city. The weather was really nice, I loved seeing the sun finally. Friday we walked around town admiring all the Fallas being set up all around the city. In the evening, Rachael, Chrissy and I drank wine in our hotel room and of course we were hungry so we set out to find a bar to get some tapas. We found some and they were delicious! The bartender loved us, he even gave us hats and wanted pictures with us haha. Saturday we woke up early and visited the Mercado Central, a huge market in a beautiful old buliding with the most wonderful displays of fruits, veggies, nuts, and meat (pictured above). Valencia is famous for their oranges so I bought one of those, some cheap almonds, and we shared a basket of strawberries :) Then we went to the Museo de Fallero, a collection of the fallas over the last century, one is spared every year. We then saw the City of Arts and Sciences (pictured left) which was an area of several modern buildings, all white with an amazing display of modern architure. We finished our day at the Oceanographic, Europe's largest aquarium! (pictured right) I loved watching all the fish and other animals like dolphins, penguins, walruses, sharks, and 2 beluga whales!!! That night we had a famous Mediterrean paella and watched the parade. I also had my first experience of churros and chocolate, buñelos, and spanish horchata (so much tastier than Mexican horchata)!!

Sunday the whole group went on a bike tour of the city and it was so much fun. We rode through old town all the way to the City of Arts and Sciences then rode back through Valencia's enormous park that runs through the entire city in the dried up river bed! (left: biking through the river bed park) It was such a beautiful day! Then we went to old town for Mascletá and finished the day with another paella before heading home!

I can't wait for my next Spanish cuidad visit this weekend:

Granada to visit mis primas!!