“Create experiences that leave you in awe,
for these will be the highlight of your life”. ~Ryan Blair
I love experiencing a new culture and learning more about their traditions and customs. It’s enriching, exciting and quite interesting. So, one March morning while exploring Valencia, Spain I set out to see what all the excitement was in the streets and neighboring communities. I knew I was in for a really neat experience. All throughout the city, I noticed many beautiful structures, or ninots (puppets or dolls), on every street corner. Many were taller than the rooftops. Each one was quite unique and brightly colored. I just happened to be walking into the most spectacular and world-famous festival known as Fallas.
Fallas is a traditional Spanish celebration held in commemoration of Saint Joseph and the arrival of Spring. The origin began from a Valencian carpenter’s tradition of using planks of wood called parots to hang their candles on during the winter, as these were needed to provide light to work by. With the coming of the spring, they were no longer necessary, so they were burned.
To this day, crews of artists and artisans, sculptors, painters, and other craftsmen, spend months producing elaborate masterpieces to honor St. Joseph. These fanciful caricatures are created out of paper, wax, wood and polystyrene foam, with some towering up to five stories in height. Each one is produced under the direction of one of the many individual neighborhood casals fallers who vie with each other to attract the best artists, and then to create the most outrageous allegorical monument to their target.
No matter the size or the detail, each ninot tells their own story and is extravagant in their own way. Throughout the festival there is a contest for the best ninot. At the end of the celebration an award is given to one masterpiece and this statue is the only one that is not burned at the end of the festival. The winning ninot is then placed in a museum with the previous winners, which is open to the public during the festival.
The last day of Fallas is March 19th and is known as La Cremà. As day turns to night and darkness sets in, every ninot throughout Valencia is set ablaze. As each statue burns the crowd will slowly move to Plaza del Ayuntamiento where the last statue of the entire festival is burned. This is an amazing sight to see and even from hundreds of feet away you can feel the heat of the flames. Being able to go from statue to statue as you follow the path to the main Plaza is an amazing tradition that you simply need to experience first-hand.
Thousands of people travel from around the world, near and far, just to get a glimpse of this breathtaking festival. From the food to the dancing to all the amazing ninots, Fallas is an amazing and lively celebration that should be on anyone’s bucket list. This is truly a festival that you will want to visit more than once.
