Valencia y Las Fallas

My trip to Valencia included neither of the two main draws of the city for tourists:  the beaches (it was too cold) or the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, Valencia’s space age architectural wunderkid museum/aquarium.  But, it did include one of Spain’s most bombastic festivals.  Las Fallas is celebrated in honor of St. Joseph every March for 5 days, culminating on March 19^th.  I got to go to Valencia with the family of one of the students I teach, and we arrived Friday evening before the festival had started in earnest and while many of the finishing touches were being put onto the fallas.  I was there for the weekend leading up to las fallas, and so while I didn’t experience the fiery conclusion of the festival, I got my fair share of explosions and revelry.  Once the festival gets rolling it doesn’t stop until the end, with parades, people dressed up in traditional costumes, dancing, partying, and drinking going all night and all day.

Las fallas are very elaborate paper-mâché monuments that are constructed throughout the year by neighborhood groups leading up to the festival.  They are frequently scenes depicting either fictitious or real figures, frequently political, and satire and lampooning is extremely common and is a means of speaking out against a political climate that has long been mired by corruption and cronyism.  More or less every block will have their own falla, some less intricate and maybe 15 feet tall, others extremely detailed and reaching as high as the 5 or 6 story buildings surrounding them. 

After seeing a lot of the fallas on Friday night, we went on Saturday morning to go check out the Mercat Central, Valencia’s modernista masterpiece of a market, and which is one of the oldest still operational markets in Europe.  Everything from ruby red strawberries to legs of jamón to monkfish to craft beer is obtainable, and the central dome of the market is a beautiful combination of tiles and steel framing.

Practically next door is La Lonja de la Seda, which is a building dating back to the 15^th century that used to serve as the main area of silk commerce in Valencia.  Its outer façade is almost castle-like, and the interior courtyard is filled with orange trees and fountains.  

The main room features thick, cork-screw like pillars and a domed ceiling, made possible by the riches gained through the silk trade that passed through Valencia from Asia to the rest of continental Europe. 

After exploring the mercat and La Lonja, we made our way towards the Ajuntament, following the crowd of people.  Each day of the festival at 2 PM in the afternoon is la mascletà, a minutely composed firecracker performance that lasts a good 7 minutes or so.  

I use the word “composed” deliberately; the mascletà is made up of different timbres of firecrackers ranging from short shrill stacatto pops, to deeper bass booms, flim flams, timpani tams, schreeches, and whines, all organized in a cohesive and rhythmic fashion.  It sounds like an enormous drum line performing, and billows of smoke from the explosions waft down the streets and obscure the Ajuntament where the mascletà takes place. Listen and watch below.

And once las fallas starts, the mascletà only represents the most artfully arranged noise amidst a constant barrage of pops and pips and other explosions.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, from little 2 or 3 year olds to 80 year old grandmas and grandpas, are lighting and throwing firecrackers or petardos all over the place, inside, outside, off of balconies, wherever. 

It’s the epitome of the no pasa nada ethos, and kids of all ages are handling fire and little explosives.  Perhaps the most Spanish thing I’ve ever seen is when a mother took a petardo from the box, held the fuse up to her lit cigarette, and handed it to her son who couldn’t have been more than 5 years old, and who promptly threw it 10 or so feet away and watched it pop before reaching for another one to throw.  If I had a euro for every time a Spaniard said “Sabemos que se dicen no jugar con fuego, pero….” (We know that they say not to play with fire, but…), I would’ve been a rich man. 

And yet, nobody seems to get hurt, at least not too badly.  I watched one kid have a firecracker blow up right behind him, and besides crying out “ay mi culo,” he was back to throwing firecrackers a few minutes later and even offered me a few to throw.  All of my American safety first conditioning was going off like a fire alarm inside my head, but it eventually kind of short circuited because you just get used to it.  At first, it sounds like a war zone going on, but it just becomes normal after a bit.

If rampant and near omnipresent detonations seem like a recipe for disaster, las fallas comes to a close on March 19^th with la cremà, where all of the fallas (and there are hundreds throughout the city) are burned to the ground.  The final falla to be burned is the largest one that is in the main city square in front of the Ajuntament, which this year was a giant lion, and which you can watch below.

I wasn’t present for la cremà, but even what I experienced was something completely unique.  Basically imagine America’s Fourth of July celebrations, but 10 times more intense, that goes for 5 straight days without ceasing and then which involves massive and very artfully done monuments being burned to the ground in the middle of major city streets all over the place.  Although las fallas is celebrated in other cities in la Comunitat Valenciana, the celebration is most intense and wide-spread in the city of Valencia itself, and has been occurring for hundreds of years.