Las Fallas is a two-week festival held in Valencia, Spain each March commemorating Saint Joseph. Key events include the burning of hundreds of large bonfires and elaborate statues (fallas) built by neighborhoods, which are burned down in minutes after months of work. The festival culminates on March 19th with the burning of all the fallas after firework displays and processions throughout the city. It is a celebration of fire, folk traditions, and community pride that attracts many tourists each year.

1. Las Fallas – The Festival of Fire
Every year at midnight on the 19th
of March, the third-largest city in Spain is set
ablaze. Over 500 bonfires, some five storeys high, burn on street corners and in the
squares throughout the town. The air hangs thick with the smells and sounds of
gunpowder and firecrackers. And curiously, no one is doing a thing about it. In fact,
the entire city has come to watch. This is exactly why they’re here.
Las Fallas is a two-week traditional festival commemorating Saint Joseph held in the
coastal city of Valencia. It is the epicentre of the region’s cultural calendar and
attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to what Lonely Planet describes as
“Europe’s wildest spring party”.
The roots of the tradition are not fully known – fallas derives from the Latin fax
(torch) - but are reported to date back to the Middle Ages when artisans would burn
any pieces of wood left over from winter labour to celebrate the arrival of the spring
equinox. Over time, and as the Church began to intervene, this began to coincide with
the festival of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. This celebration of
woodwork and construction is ever more evident in the modern age, as skilled and
dedicated labourers have added polystyrene, paper and waxworks to their builder’s
armoury to spend months (and at the top end of the scale, hundreds of thousands of
euros) building elaborate, gravity-defying statues – to be burned down in a matter of
minutes.

2. These caricatures line the streets of Valencia – each neighbourhood has an organised
council known as the casal faller that works all year long and eventually produces a
huge wooden construction called a ninot (puppet or doll) which is set alight at the end
of the festival upon a cardboard and papier-mâché monument, the falla itself. These
are all built according to a very satirical theme, poking fun at whichever figures or
events in popular culture have come under the critical eye of the falleros – the
participants. Many of the ninots remain traditional representations, but characters
such as George Bush and Lady Gaga have been joyously set ablaze in recent years!
There are more than 500 fallas in Valencia, including those of other towns in the
wider community, and each and every one is unique. The neighbourhoods all aim to
attract the best artists to create the most outrageous and grotesque displays, competing
for first place in the Sección Especial – the most prestigious prize a falla can win.
Winning this title also ensures that the fruits of their labour will not be quite literally
turned to ash, as every winner of the Sección Especial since 1942 has been preserved
in the Museo Fallero. They are the only fallas to be spared the flames each year.
Las Fallas in modern times represents the harmony of cosmopolitan and traditional
Valencian culture. The most breath-taking firework displays light up the skies above
the magnificent City of Arts and Sciences, a triumph of modern architecture and the
city’s most important tourist destination. Elegant medieval costumes and religious
parades meet Erasmus fancy-dress parties in the streets. Disney characters sit side-by-
side Spanish fairy-tale creatures towering over the Plaza Ayuntamiento – the
epicentre of the festivities and home to the loudest, most unpredictably terrifying
firecracker displays on earth. These are called mascletàs, coordinated displays held at
2 p.m. each day starting on March 15th
, becoming progressively more thunderous and

3. aggressive as the end of Las Fallas approaches. This is the battleground of the
pyrotechnics, who are vying for the honour of providing the final mascletà of the
festival on the 19th
of March. These displays are held at every fallas in the city as the
clock in the Plaza chimes 2, at the behest of the Fallera Mayor calling from the
balcony of the city hall. The central mascletà quite literally shakes the ground, and the
deafening noises are so intense that pregnant women are strongly advised not to
attend. The narrow streets surrounding the square are packed tightly backwards for
over one hundred metres – grabbing a spot near the front requires arriving at least two
hours early and a strong bladder.
However loud, this remarkable display is really just an extension of the rest of the
daily chaos that the Fallas celebrations inspire. Each day of the festival is started with
la despertà (‘the wake-up call’). At 8 a.m. the brass bands pick up their lively tunes
and march through the streets of the city. Behind them, the fallers throw firecrackers
for good measure, ensuring that this is quite unlike any wake-up call you’ve ever had.
Once you’ve accepted that there aren’t pillows in the world thick enough to drown it
out, you have to admit, however grudgingly, it works. Valencians start as they mean
to continue, and the despertà quite literally sets the tone for the rest of the day. The
screeches and dull explosions of fireworks echo relentlessly around the city – visitors
might be surprised to see the elderly residents throwing cheap firecrackers around the
streets with as much gusto as the children, who run giddily through the streets waving
sparklers and getting as close as they dare to the loudest bangs. Sweeping burnt fuses
and debris off one’s balcony becomes part of the daily routine. The acrid smell of
gunpowder is unmistakeable. Impromptu band performances strike up throughout the
afternoon, playing rhythmic folk tunes for performers and spectators alike to sway

4. and jig along to. Whistles and drums from members of the crowd eagerly provide
backing support. The local expression for all this is - quite accurately - follón de
ruido (insane noise). Visitors should stick to open spaces and remain vigilant, as
rounding a dark corner to face twenty schoolchildren armed with explosives and
itching to play with them is not an experience for the faint-hearted. A strong bladder
is advised in this instance as well.
For the students – and there are many of them, the two universities in Valencia
occupy second and third positions for incoming Erasmus students alone among
European institutions – Las Fallas is their ‘spring break’. An extra week of holidays is
added to the university calendars, and the numerous public holidays in March
combined with the novel concept of ‘puente’ (literally, bridge; students skip the day
after a public holiday as well to enjoy a four-day weekend) ensure that no potential
drinking hours in the sun are wasted in a sweltering and uncomfortable lecture hall.
The five days and nights of Fallas are simply one continuous party, with the implicit
aim to kick off the first event of each afternoon, be it a parade or even a flower
offering – these students aren’t fussy – with a drink in each hand and make it through
the night in time to dance along with the despertà on your doorstep the following
morning. Some of the spectacles, particularly the cabalgata del fuego – the Fire
Parade – are simply too good to miss, and the collective energy and buzz from the
endless crowds is more than enough to keep you out of bed.
Las Fallas brings the very best out of Valencia and her citizens, and the
overwhelmingly positive impact that tourism has brought to the area is plain to see –
so much so that there have been discussions held over bringing some dates in line

5. with the weekend, to maximise the number of potential visitors. The local climate
certainly plays a part in attracting them; Valencia enjoys on average 300 days of
sunshine a year, and the four days of the festival are blessed with them. Recently, the
festival has created a dedicated local industry, which has grown to the point that an
entire neighbourhood area has been designated the Cuitat Fallera – City of Fallas.
Here the most intricate and outrageous ninots are designed and crafted in full view of
the public in specially cordoned areas. The mix of colours, sights and smells – you
rarely find yourself more than five feet from a cart selling fried churros, bunyols and
pores as well as the all-familiar chestnuts – is something truly unique. Even the
multitudes of colourful t-shirts with outrageous puns across the front (‘I’m on Falla’
was a popular choice) add to the canvas.
Should you be fortunate enough to find a view, the skyline across Valencia just after
midnight on the 19th
of March is a sight quite unlike any other, as the city is truly
engulfed by fire and billowing smoke. Beyond the buildings, towards the hills, fallas
flicker in the distance as every town in the Community of Valencia (almost 9000 sq.
miles) put their own beloved creations to the torch. And in the heart of Valencia itself,
in the Plaza Ayuntamiento, the wry smiles of the casal falleres are illuminated in
them – already looking forward to the next one.