Fallas, Valencia, España

Light show at Calle Sueca

More of the light show

FALLAS. That is the one thing anyone in the spring semester hears about before they travel to have their Valencian experience. That's why when March rolled around, we were all super excited. Valencia does a great job on building up the anticipation to the festival and getting everybody in the city ready for the main week. Advertisements and flyers go up around the city, shops you've never seen open before suddenly are in business at every corner, and you hear the occasional burst of fireworks now and again. For some background into the event, the festival celebrates the patron saint of Valencia, Saint Joseph, the carpenter. Basically, all year round people in Valencia work to build massive monuments, each called a "falla", for the festival. They are made out of papier-mache, styrofoam, and wood.  Each neighborhood (which in the city of Valencia was around 350 or more) has their own falla and it can portray something historical, political, satirical, or comical, anything really. They are cartoon-like, colorful, intricate, playful, and some are simply breathtaking to look at. The neighborhoods that have more money to fund their building process usually have the most spectacular fallas. The first day of Fallas, the 15th of March, La Plantá occurs, and the builders go place the specific fallas in their neighborhoods. Our neighborhood had an interesting falla, it was a princess or young woman sleeping in a bed that was tilted upward, with a moon and sheep above her head and some other random and provocative scenes on the side. There are also usually "ninots" included with the neighborhood falla. They are smaller versions of a falla.

Our neighborhood Falla

Eventually, about a week before Las Fallas actually begins, something called La Mascletá starts to happen everyday at 2 pm. This event is almost indescribable. You have to experience it yourself to truly understand. Basically, everybody crowds into the Plaza de Ayuntamiento, the largest of the three main plazas and the one that contains city hall. Here, people count down the minutes 2 o'clock and then the show begins. The fallera mayor and fallera mayor infantil (sort of like the queen and princess of the festival) introduce themselves and officially start la mascletá. It was especially cool for me because the fallera mayor infantil for this year's festival was actually a student in the class I helped teach at the local school! Her name is Rocio and I remember meeting her the first day I went to go volunteer. She asked me if I was excited for Fallas, because she would be on tv and that I should look for her. The teacher then started explaining her role and position in the festival. It sounded so intricate and time consuming, most days she was not even present. Anyways, once they speak to the entire crowd, they count down and then the fireworks begin! They erupt from the central square and last for 5 mintues. The fireworks are loud, rhythmic, and spectacular. You can feel the vibrations, hear the sound, and see the smoke from miles away. If you are standing close enough, your body shakes a bit from the explosions. During these afternoon mascletás, we would grab churros and chocolate, a 1 euro cerveza from vendors on the street, and pick a spot that we could squeeze into. Then we simply enjoyed the show with the rest of the crowd of Valencians, all of us so excited for Fallas.

Young girls dressed in the traditional attire and hairstyle of a fallera

The main days of Fallas were from March 15th to 19th, and we started the festival off right by attending a bull fight on the 15th. They have them all throughout the week during Fallas. I sat next to one of my teachers, B.J., who was telling me the details about the bullfighting process the entire time. Some people didn't want to attend, but I felt like I really wanted to commit to this particular cultural experience, no matter how gruesome or off-putting I found it. Toward the end, I felt weird admitting that I rather enjoyed it, but not because of the killing of the bulls, but the overall feeling that I was a part of Spanish culture for a moment in time. I could go on for days about the details of the fight, but I'll highlight some main ones. Trumpets signal the start of the fight. The three matadors that were performing were Corro Díaz, Matías Tejela, and Alberto Aguilar. They always wear gold. Their goal is to wear the bull down and test his strengths until the matador finally kills him by unfortunately stabbing him in the area behind the neck, above his head. Six bulls were killed in total during the fight. The matadors do use a red cape during their fight, but the color actually does not matter, bulls are colorblind. Other players besides the matadors are "picadores", who are on horseback and whose job is to stab the bull to weaken it, aiming high. The matador's goal is to clean the bull cleanly and quickly, and for it not to be drawn out. The crowd gets angry if this happens, and I saw this a few times. Ultimately, the fight was entertaining and informative to me, I'm glad I went.

The bullring in Valencia

In addition to being the first true night of Las Fallas, the 15th of March was also the first night that we all experienced the firework show from the riverbed. Honestly, it was the best display of fireworks that I've ever seen in my entire life, and that's not an exaggeration, they were phenomenal. Each night from the 15th to 18th we all walked outside and in front of the Torres to join the massive groups of people heading to watch the show. We walked a bit down the street, passing two or three bridges and then took the walkway down into the river bed to watch the show there. We always positioned ourselves to watch from behind one of the more modern looking bridges. When the fireworks began, we all were quiet, because they were magnificent. I think someone may have told me that they test out fireworks that they eventually use during the Olympics at the Fallas firework shows. That says something. Each week the firework show progressively got better, finally ending on the 18th, or "la nit del foc" ("the night of fire" in Valencian).

A bombero (fireman) watching our neighborhood's ninot burn

After the first day and night of Fallas, we were tired as anything. We knew we would have to sustain ourselves the rest of the week though, nothing was stopping. More people progressively arrived to the city, and the fireworks that explode every 2 seconds made everything louder. Each morning La Despertá would happen, which is basically an 8 am wake-up call of fireworks. They were wonderfully joyful, especially when we all went to sleep at 6 or 7 am....... 


Each day during the festival we would get up and go outside to see what was going on in the streets. For example, we attended a few block parties with music and drink vendors, watched groups women and young girls dressed in the traditional outfits parading throughout the streets, traveled to buy fireworks from the stores and then set them off in the riverbed (one of my favorite things to do), went to different neighborhoods to check out everybody's falla and how it compared to our own, or we shopped! The street immediately to the left of our study center became a block party itself, and so did the plaza to the right of us. You turned to the left and saw multiple vendors selling anything from waffles, fries, meat sandwiches, cotton candy, candy apples, and baked potatoes. There were also drink huts, jewelry stands, and souvenirs everywhere. It was insane and always packed with people. There was always music playing as well. We heard Enrique Iglesias' song "I Like It" probably a hundred times, and it became a joke between all of us at the study center. We went here almost every day and night to go get a drink, see what people were selling, or to try the random games they had set up too. Each time Hannah passed this soccer game on the side of the street she always had to try. The object was to kick the ball into the moving net without hitting the obstacle in the middle. Sadly, she never won, but we always had fun trying to convince the guys working at the stand to give us more tries than we paid for.

Torres de Serranos and our yellow FSU Valencia building during Las Fallas

At night, we would always go to dinner and then wait for the firework show. After the marvelous show we ended up hanging out in our Fallas tent. Each neighborhood that celebrates Fallas generally has a tent or a meeting area where members of the community come together to have fun and celebrate during the week. Ours had a D.J. inside and people serving drinks. At the very start of Fallas we attended a dinner in our tent, which was pirate themed, and we all dressed up and had fun meeting new people and dancing in our pirate outfits all night. This tent ended up being so convenient and fun, everyone generally gathered there and had a blast while inside. There were also "verbanas" at night, which are outdoor concerts, and some of our friends went to those as well. One of the most memorable nights was when we went to see the light displays over near Calle Sueca. All week long I had heard people talking about this light show and how grand and spectacular it was. I saw pictures on someone's phone and knew we had to find that street. I ended up visiting twice, and the first time I saw it, I was in awe. Streets in this neighborhood were filled with lights, streaming up and down the buildings and hanging from side to side. The lights were different colors and in multiple patterns and shapes. One of the most memorable light structures was a giant Eiffel Tower, sitting in the middle of one of the streets. It was absolutely beautiful. 

Light show near Calle Sueca

So finally on the last day of Fallas, the 19th of March, La Cremá occurs, where the neighborhoods burn their own falla, except of course the one that wins! The winner is spared from the flames and put on display in a museum. We watched our neighborhood ninot burn but decided that we wanted to watch a giant falla which looked like Leonardo da Vinci burn instead of our own. We walked a few blocks down the street and stood for about 2 hours with a giant crowd waiting for this falla to burn. There were thousands of people too, it was a very popular falla in the area, big enough that people could walk inside of it! Finally around 2 or 1:3o am we heard the crack of the firework that starts the fuse and watched as the massive falla burnt to the ground. We were so close that as the flames grew bigger, we all had to back up due to the immense amount of heat that erupted from the area. I felt like I was sticking my head in a campfire. Eventually the face of Leonardo fell off and everyone cheered! It was amazing to watch such a huge structure burn to the ground. Bomberos (firemen) were there to occasionally spray the surrounding trees and buildings with water so nothing else caught on fire. I really felt for those guys...they work overtime during this festival. After most were done marveling at the flames, people filed out of the neighborhood and back down the street. My friend Michael and I stayed to watch the rest of the structure burn to see if all of it would come down. We stayed with a few other Valencians until all that was left were two wooden poles in the middle. Then as if on cue, it started raining, the second time it ever rained during my time in Spain. I thought it was interesting how once 350 or more fallas burned around the city of Valencia, the rain came in to take care of business and help the bomberos with extinguishing the flames at the very end. 

Leonardo falla before 

Leonardo falla after

This festival was so wonderful to learn about but even better to experience and live in at the same time. I was so thankful for my Regional Cultural Studies class, because it was so very focused on the basics of Las Fallas and everything that goes into putting it together year round. Some of the pictures I used are average, but I really wanted to show the festival as best I could. I know one thing for sure, I'm positive I'll return to Valencia one day to see all these sights again. Everyone was right, Fallas was something I'll never forget.