Las Fallas en Valencia

After a somewhat epic Saint Patrick's day (my first one as a 21 year old – I'd say I made it a night to remember. Or forget, depending on how you look at it.), we got on the buses at 9am to head for Valencia. We in Alicante are part of the Valencia community, but the actual city of Valencia was about a 2.5 hour bus ride. I think we took the long way.

Las Fallas is a huge week-long celebration in Valencia. Las fallas are huge, cartoon-like structures that are designed according to a citywide theme. There are probably more than 100 fallas created – each barrio (neighborhood) has one. Here are a few ejemplos...

We were in Valencia for the Friday of Las Fallas, which is a pretty eventful day. As soon as we got there, we headed to la Plaza de Ayuntamiento which is where La Mascletà occurs. La Mascletà is basically a fireworks show without the pretty fireworks. It's a lot of noise. Firecrackers go off for 7-8 minutes in a rhythm of some sort, and the Spaniards treat it like a concert. They jump around and dance as if it's music. It was a pretty awesome thing to see (/hear), and it was easy to pick out the Americans around because NONE of the Spaniards had their fingers in their ears. This picture is right after the finale. The smoke cleared away pretty quickly.

The Saturday of Las Fallas, which some people from my program attended but I did not, is the big event. One of las fallas is selected as the best, most beautiful, or most impressive, and the rest are burned. From what I understand, it's quite the show.