Las Fallas Festival in Valencia, Spain
Tue, Aug 28th 2007, 00:00
Valencia comes alive around the spring equinox for the festival of Las Fallas.
Las Fallas began as a spring cleaning ritual by the carpenters of Valencia who would clear out their workshops after the long winter and burn wood offcuts in honour of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of the carpenters. Over the years, this St Josephs Day ritual has grown into a grand fiesta that involves every neighbourhood in Valencia and the Comunitat Valenciana.
Each neighbourhood assembles a group, the casal faller. They spend months planning and building impressive ninots (puppets or dolls) depicting an agreed upon theme that is traditionally a satirical jab at anything or anyone unlucky enough to draw the attention of the fallers. These ninots are mounted on a platform in elaborate firecracker filled cardboard or papier mache monuments known as falla (sometimes towering up to five stories high).
There are more than 500 different falles who take part. The casal fallers dress in the regional costumes and lead processions through the streets of Valencia.
The two weeks of Falles is one running party, day and night. Restaurants and bars spill onto the streets and the explosions of firecrackers (tossed by everyone from small children to elderly gentlemen) pierce the air sporadically. Each day of falles begins at 8am with la desperta (the wakeup call). There are processions galore ... historical processions, religious processions, and hysterical processions.
Around 2pm each day is a mascleta, an explosive display put on by the pyrotechnic masters. They vie for the honour of providing the final mascleta display.
On the final night the falla are burnt in huge bonfires, known as the cremada or crema (the burning). Huge crowds gather from all corners of the city to witness the final crescendo of fireworks and pyrotechnics around midnight.
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