Valencia and The Fallas Fiesta
Monday, March 22, 2010 @ 6:41 PM
Have you ever been to Valencia? Neither had I until last Friday. What a wonderful place Valencia is - a mixture of old and new. As can been seen with the futuristic City of Arts and Science Museum and the Cathedral (pictured below).
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We went to celebrate the Fallas Fiesta.
The Fallas is a fire festival par excellence and it’s worth visiting Valencia just to soak up the atmosphere at Fallas time. A Falla is basically a frame made out of cardboard, paper, wood and plastic, on which the ninots are placed. The ninots are figures made of papier machée and they depict satirical local, national and international scenes. They make fun of everything and everyone. They are all burned every year on the 19th March which is the night of the feast of St. Joseph.
Below are some of the ninots from last Friday.
A group of ninots
Some of the individual ninots
An important part of Las Fallas includes the fabulous dresses which many of the Valencian women and children wear to the festival and to the 'Offrenda de Flores' (offering of flowers) to Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados (Patron of Valencia).
Around ninety thousand Valencian women and girls called falleras (men are referred to as falleros) carry bouquets of red carnations and roses (some white) to the Neustra Senora de los Desamparados - Basilica of the Virgin of the Forsaken. The flowers are then magically woven into a beautiful mantel which covers the Virgin.
We had a fabulous time and all in all we thought Valencia was ...................
