05 February 2010 18:30
Las Fallas, the festival of fire
Topdeck Travel festival manager Amelia Lawrence travels to Valencia to keep warm this spring at the Las Fallas festival.
editor@newzealandtimes.co.uk
When the end of winter nears and the temperatures start to rise, the people of Valencia have a unique way to ring in the new season. In honour of the city’s patron saint, St Joseph, Valencians celebrate with a festival unlike any other – Las Fallas.
During the week leading up to 19 March (the feast day of San José), huge constructions are placed around the city; papier-mâché caricatures – fallas - of life, love and nature. These sculptures can reach up to five stories high and are an impressive addition to the beautiful architecture already present in Valencia.
Each day of Las Fallas, the ceremony begins at 8am when brass bands walk the streets for la despertà (the wakeup call), followed by fire crackers to finish off the job of waking up everyone in town. ‘Spanish time’ means ‘early’ when it comes to fiestas in this town!
At 2pm each day is la mascletà, a huge fireworks display where pyrotechnic masters compete to provide the final fireworks display of the festival. In this regard, louder is better, as far as the locals are concerned. The ground rocks, the sky breaks open and the streets are filled with colour.
The climax of the festival comes on the night of March 19
th, during
la crema. At midnight the huge fallas effigies are set alight. The locals celebrate with a street party of grande proportions. The falla near the town hall is, by tradition, set alight last. However, the party continues until the early hours of the morning – again, ‘Spanish time’.
The real bonus of this fiesta, though, is that it retains its local feel. Not particularly well known outside of Spain, it is one of the few festivals where you wont bump in to too many other foreigners allowing you more opportunity to meet some amazing locals.
What better way to experiencing some real Spanish flair .. or should that be ‘flare’?
Amelia Lawrence is Topdeck Travel’s festival manager. Go to www.topdeck.travel for more information about Topdeck’s range of trips to Spain, including Las Fallas.
How to get there:
The best way to get to Valencia is by flying directly into the city’s airport. Easyjet and Ryanair offer budget flights from London to Valencia all year round.
Once you've booked on the trip, Topdeck have detailed instructions in your itinerary of how to get from the airport to their central hostel.
However, as the festival gets closer, often flight prices increase. For people looking to save on costs and see a bit more of Spain, there is the option to fly into Barcelona or Madrid and then direct trains to Valencia can be booked online at www.renfe.es
From Barcelona the train journey is about 3 hours, from Madrid about 4 hours.