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LAS FALLAS!!!!
So i've been in Valencia for the last two weekends to see their festivity - the making and destroying of figures. Every area of town creates a different falla, sometimes even two an adult one and one for the infants. These can cost up to 190,000 euros to make and take practically all year, starting with the designing, fund raising (obviously) and the actual making of the statue.
The first weekend most of the fallas were still in the building stages and had plastic covers over them to protect them from the rain, and from others destroying them before they were meant to be. I got to see a few half built fallas that weekend. As well as them, Valencia also have daily masklitars (massive firecracker displays) for the two weeks prior to the burnings. The best way to describe this tradition is taken from PJ - "the loudest sound you've ever seen" The bangs you can both see and hear but even more tremendious is that if you are remotely close to the spectical you can feel the firecrackers.
Valencia was already heating up with people that weekend, but the next weekend was the real event. Arriving on the Thursday night with Javi and eventually parking after finding a "space" in a dirty wet field, we had a relaxing stressfree night, knowing that the following day was going to be long and tiring. This was mainly due to the vast amount of fallas available to see (over 300) and simply because i wanted to see as many as I possibly could. So a reasonably early start and off to see las fallas with Javi - who is a star, and traipsed around the city looking at all the different characatures with me.
We walked and we walked and we made it into town, stopping to see the third prize, the first prize, the winners of varying catagories, and a few experimental fallas too (which I wasn't too fond of). Stopping in a local Irish pub before being crushed by the crowds to see the maskiltar again, and we bump into Javi's friends from Alcoy - what are the chances??? Of to lunch with them, and a few beers, discovered I lost 45 euros, saw a few more fallas and of for a well deserved rest back at the flat. The plan had been to go and see the fireworks, but i was exhausted and curled up in bed, knowing that the next day would bring as much excitment.
Jenny arrived :) and we headed into the town to see more fallas, which included a few I had already seen, and a closer view of the last maskiltar. We couldn't have been closer without being in the enclosure with the firecrackers, so man was it loud!! We saw the female memebers of fallas paying respect to the virgin and offering flowers, and walked past more fallas before night fell and the fires started. Now why they spend hundreds of thousands of euros on something that they set on fire I'm not sure, but man was it hot!!! We saw a fair few infant fallas being set a light, and we were too close to the fox when it fell due to the flames, and in the town square we saw a glimpse of the fire from the ferrari after the fireworks that put the hogmmany bash in Edinburgh to shame.
The long long walk back to the flat, that was only made longer by the ache in my feet from walking for hours in trainers that had fallen apart well before the hundreds of miles that I had adventured on that weekend. Train home on the Sunday, to start the new week back in Alcoy. At the beginning of April, I'm going to Seville so i'll keep up updated.
- comments
Anthony Las Fallas de Valencia, tanto para los que viven en dicha ciudad como para los que llagen forasteros, tienen muchos encantos, muchas magias, muchos momentos fanicos que de ser vividos te acuerdas de ellos eternamente.Pero el que vivas los momentos me1gicos, no es una cuestif3n fe1cil. Es muy difedcil, incluso para aquellos que viven en Valencia toda su vida, pues me1s de la mitad no se enterare1n nunca. Pues en Valencia no existe el prurito de ensef1ar al que no sabe en las cosas propias, es al reve9s, quien sabe se lo calla, cosa que es Uso; escrito no este1.Por lo tanto a quienes lleguen a Valencia les aconsejo que se arrimen a un valenciano viejo, a poder ser miembro de una comisif3n fallera af1eja, y si se lo ganan, si se ganan su confianza e9l los introducire1 en todo aquello que tiene encanto y magia. c9l les explicare1 la parte artedstica de los monumentos falla; e9l les llevare1 de la mano y los introducire1 en los fuegos como concelebrantes de los mismos, e9l los apadrinare1 en las magias del fuego.De no hacer eso y sintonizar con un tonto cualquiera, olveddense de que este1n en valencia. Perdere1n el tiempo, y aunque vean muchas cosas que les asombren, de nada se enterare1n.Luego no digan que no este1n avisados.So. Andre9s Castellano Marted. Gracias. 0