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Las Fallas

Among Spain many, justly celebrated fiestas, Valencia’s “Las Fallas” is one of the most spectacular and important. Those originally involved, back in the Middle Ages, were carpenters, who used to light a bonfire in honour of Saint Joseph, their patron saint. Effigies depicting rival organisations of carpenters were then thrown onto the fire. These days the effigies are much larger and made of papier-mâché, wood and wax. They can take a year to built and are paraded through the streets from 13 – 19 March. They usually take a topical and satirical form, with each neighbourhood (or barrio) vying to create the best.

The opening of the festival is usually announced from the Torres de Serrans by the Fallera Mayor – the Queen of the Fallas. Each day, during the subsequent week, firecrackers blast out over Placa de l’Ajuntament, bullfights are held in the afternoons and the evenings culminate with a massive fireworks display. All the fallas are assembled in the streets on 15th March. The fiesta culminates with a bang on 19th March – the night of the feast of St Joseph – when the Fallas are thrown into an enormous pyre, the Crema. Prize-winning fallas are kept till last. Only one "ninot" (the mini version of a fallas) is saved each year by popular vote and exhibited in the Museum of the Ninot, together with those from previous years which won the same privilege.