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Where it's at
Las Fallas is a boisterous seven-day festival in the province
of Valencia, Spain that culminates on 19 March every year,
on the feast day of San Jose.
What happens at Las Fallas?
Valencia's biggest festival is a riotous week of celebration,
with a myriad of larger-than-life effigies, firework and firecracker
displays that light up the streets of the Spanish town. The
main attractions of the festival are undoubtedly the fallas
- colourful papier-mâché figures, often satirical
in nature, that are built in the city streets.
Figures of historical and contemporary politicians and actors
are commonly depicted in the fallas and the artists often
make use of the opportunity to depict a point of view, in
a humorous and almost child-like fashion. Saddam Hussein,
George Bush and Tony Blair were tossed onto the pyre in 2003.
Over 700 of these papier-mâché monuments, some
stretching to 60ft in height, are adored by festivalgoers
over the week and are burnt to a cinder on the last night,
the Night of Fire.
The tradition of burning the fallas came from an age old
practice where carpenters would accumulate their wood shavings
into huge bonfires as a tribute to San Jose, the patron
saint of carpenters.
The first falla is set alight at precisely 10pm on the final
night. Don't miss the burning of the main falla in the town
centre at 1am. As you can imagine, it is the busiest night
for the Spanish fire fighters who keep the massive flames
under control.
Valencians, being world renowned for their fireworks, spare
no expense as the sky is lit with a brilliant fireworks extravaganza
almost every night. The Las Fallas is truly a festival for
the senses, and it guarantees to leave you with a incessant
ringing in your ears and a smile of your face.
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