Las Fallas of Valencia
Explosions to the left and to the right every 5 seconds,
all colours of the rainbow on the dresses of the locals
jumping in frenzy to traditional music, millions of people
with no sleep for 4 days and giant 15-20 metre caricature
effigies grinning at you at every crossroad, many with hard-punching
satire and even sexually explicit scenes. This is Disneyland
purchased by the Lord of the Underworld, this is Fear and
Loathing in Valencia – Las Fallas.
Arguably the craziest urban festival in Europe, this is
one of the most bizarre and fascinating European attractions,
yet it is not a recent invention of new age imagination
but a deeply traditional local festivity.
Valencia, the City of Contrast, has stepped firmly into
the cosmopolitan 21st century, yet it has kept much of its
tradition intact. The social fabric of Valencia is still
organised around the clan-like fallas – neighbourhood
co-operatives, reminiscent of Moorish tribal organisation.
The falleros comprise a good 30-40% of Valencia. Their main
job, apart from being a community, is to stage various fiestas
throughout the year, and Las Fallas is their ultimate hay
day.
Each of around 350 fallas-communities of Valencia commissions
an effigy – enormous structures made out of papier-mache
on a wooden carcass, lavishly painted in bright colours
and intricately complex in their themes.
Traditionally, the fallas are satirical. It is everyone’s
chance to lash out at whatever troubles them this year –
perhaps a public figure or a policy or a development, but
more often it is a mocking of society, a brave self-reflection
on the morals of today – perhaps greed, vanity, decadence
or vulgarity. On this last one – the fallas are definitely
for mommy and daddy as the Valencians are particularly fond
of sex references in the effigies (sometimes even downright
disturbing). However, each falla-community also commissions
a children’s falla to be placed side by side with
that of the adults.
The fallas cost a lot of money and many months to create.
Some poorer ones are less intricate and smaller, according
to the budget, while the better sponsored-ones can be up
to 30 metres in height and about the same in width. This
is the part no foreigner can get a grip on – all this
stuff will get burned to the cheers of the crowd.
The Fallas festival advances with much anticipation by
the locals, like an unstoppable flood stretching barriers
to the limit before bursting out in all its monstrous force.
It simmers throughout the year with the making of the effigies
and selections of the Fallera Mayor – the Queen of
Fallas who will become the face of Valencia for that one
year.
In the end of the February the first petards hit the floor,
the first traditional costumes appear on the streets and
the first music bands march in the afternoon. On the last
Sunday the motley noisy crowd gathers at Torres de Serranos
(magnificent Gothic city gates) to be called upon for “the
best party in the world” by the Fallera Mayor.
From then on it’s all uphill. Throughout the first
two weeks of March more and more music bands rock the streets
of Valencia, the costumes are everywhere, and the explosions
rise in intensity. Every day on the main square there is
the mascleta – a mega firecracker insanity that gets
this huge square packed with people shaking in jubilant
frenzy to the shockwaves of extreme pyrotechnics.
Finally, one week before Las Fallas the first pieces of
the effigies begin to arrive for assembly to the crossroads
of Valencia’s streets. The falleros break out nomadic
camps right on the bitumen nearby and commence their binge-drinking
and paella-cooking which now won’t stop for good 10
days.
On the eve of Las Fallas, 15th March, the crowds just can’t
hold it in any longer and take to the streets in numbers,
while all of the 700 effigies get assembled at the same
time. After the fireworks the party goes on till late, with
mobile discos breaking out in multiple districts of the
city.
The next morning the lucid trip begins. Huge and wacky
caricatures grin at you from everywhere you look. Distorted
and twisted Mme Tussauds has taken over the city. Music
bands and street performers line the pavements. Valencia
bursts at the influx of visitors, up to 3 times its normal
population. Smell of gunpowder everywhere. Ears ringing
from an explosion every 5 seconds. Paellas cooked right
on the roads. Battle for survival in the main square at
midday, with the mascleta sending shockwaves through the
sea of packed bodies. Lucid groups of locals with all colours
of the rainbow on their gold-woven costumes skip in frenzy
to their traditional music through the streams of human
traffic.
At midnight the mascleta gives way to a castillo –
visual fireworks that make your jaw drop. Valencians are
the Mozart of fireworks, often doing major sports events
and New Year celebrations all over the world. Here they
bring the best of the best for their own fiesta, and this
is the most lucid transcendent stuff you have ever seen
in the sky.
At sunset there is always a spectacle in the centre –
a parade of Folklore or a parade of Fire. Next to the main
square an altar of offerings takes two days to complete
– an enormous statue of the Virgin is made entirely
of flowers, brought in ceremonious parades by the falls-communities
who stop every few minutes to have a good old dance. These
will take two whole days, 14 hours each day, to all bring
their flowers, coming out from every corner and every direction,
like streams joining one colourful river.
That’s just by day. By night the wild and the deliciously
dark rules Valencia. The whole city is given to the crowds
for a mega-party on every single street. Hundreds and hundreds
of thousands drink and go wild together at numerous mobile
concerts and discos, amongst a total war of explosions and
absolute urban chaos and anarchy, as if the government has
collapsed.
Yet in the morning there is no time to sleep. Up early
and back to the mayhem of colours.
And like this for four days.
No-one sleeps.
Finally, on the 19th those who have survived drag themselves
over to the effigies. In extreme tiredness, now oblivious
to explosions, people stand, swaying, in wait of the final
act. Another mega-tirade of all kinds of pyrotechnics and
the fire starts licking the sides of the effigies. Suddenly
the flames expand into giant multi-storey size fireballs
and fire columns, the heat wave sweeps the crowds and ignites
the spirits once again. Huge chunks of effigies fall off
into oblivion, raising clouds of sparks, ash and thick smoke
all over the city, their last moment of final glory reflecting
in the widely open eyes of the entranced onlookers.
The firemen finish the job.
The people crawl home.
Four days of insanity, colours, explosions, noise, music,
fireworks, party, mayhem, chaos, crowds and fire. Four days
without sleep.
Next morning the streets are clean as if nothing had happened.
Business as usual in Valencia.
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Alex is the webmaster of
Valencia Tourist Information - an independent resource
on travelling in Valencia, Spain.
