Fallas Valencia

Renowned artists, painters, and sculptors take great care in designing and constructing the enormous fallas – some tower up to 30 meters high! – that dominate Valencia's public squares and open spaces every year. You won't be able to keep a straight face, admiring the masterfully-created, colourful fallas(monuments) depicting celebrities, politicians, and current events of the past year in a toungue-in-cheek manner that sits halfway between a scathing satire and sardonic humor.

While awards and prizes identify the best fallas and their creators, these crafty individuals tirelessly work for months fully aware that the fruits of their talents and labors will meet their end as piles of discarded ash. At midnight on March 19 the city quite literally lights up as the 370 large fallas and 368 smaller infantile fallas burst into colorful flames.

While the week-long fiesta certainly revolves around the axis of the fallas and their eventual ignition, it also sparks the participation of the entire city. Valencian women pass through the city donning traditional regional costumes, music brightens the atmosphere, fireworks explode in the sky, and a general sense of merriment and partying fills the streets around the clock.

Here are the winners for 2015:

1er Prize Street Lighting - Falla Sueca Literato Azorín - 2015.

2nd Prize Street Lighting - Falla Cuba Literato Azorín - Fallas Valencia 2015

Plaza del Pilar - 1st Prize  Monument 2015

L'Antiga de Campanar - 2nd Prize Monument  2015

Cridá Show - Opening of Fallas

This year celebrates the 75th anniversary of the "Central Fallera", the main organising body of the fallas in Valencia. And to mark the occasion Amstel lager sponsored the largest aerial mascletá ever topping 3500kg of gun powder, 500kg more than the previous record. For those of you who have experienced a mascleta in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento of Valencia before will have an idea of how ridiculously big this mascleta was, when I say it was 15 times bigger than the average mascletá held in the centre of Valencia!  

Obviously it drew in the crowds and thousands of people went to see it. It had to be held in the old river bed as the force and size of the event was so much that it would have been extremely dangerous to do in the town square, as would normally be done.

There are few words to describe such a crazy event so it is best just to see it for yourself.... don't miss the last 30 seconds!