I'm late with this. I also wrote it much more quickly than I normally write my blogs so apologies for any failings of style. If you want to go to the Fallas they finish tonight so, if you're interested, you'll probably have to wait till next year. Put it in your diary now, March 19th, that's the date for the burning. There are things to see during the week leading up to the 19th, particularly after the 15th. Towns, like Denia and Xàtiva, have Fallas too but the big one is in Valencia. Oh, and Elda has Fallas in September.
This is not a Wikipedia article and I haven't done anything other than the most basic check of my facts. It's just what I know, or think I know, so it's quite likely that there will be factual errors. But it's enough to get the idea. Honest. There will probably also be inconsistencies in spelling because I speak English but sometimes I will have used the Valenciano expression and sometimes I'll have used the Castilian translation.
The basic idea is easy enough. Most of the districts in the city of Valencia, think Pimlico, Mayfair and Kensington, set up a Commission which then organises the details for an event that is called Fallas. They co-ordinate the things in their neighbourhood and decide how to arrange contributions towards the city wide events. Each Commission also selects a young woman and a girl sized woman to be their senior and junior "Carnival Queens", the Falleras. One young woman gets to be the city wide embodiment of the Fallas, the Fallera Mayor.
One of the principal activities of each Commission is to raise enough money to build a Falla, a monument. The money comes from local fund raising and sponsorship. Apparently the only monument that involves any public money is the one built in front of the Town Hall. Some of the monuments are modest and some are huge. They are made of wood, papier maché, polystyrene and glass fibre. Each Falla has a theme - usually some satirical comment on a current affairs story but it can be almost anything from a Royal affair to the argy bargy around a TV competition. The individual figures are called ninots and I think that before the Falla is put together the ninots are often paraded around the local streets. The individual Fallas monuments start to be put up a week or so before the big day, the 19th, when all but one of the ninots and Fallas are burned. Each Commission puts up a smaller, children's Falla, as well as the principal one. The last day on which the monuments have to be up and finished is by the day of the Plantà, usually the 15th of March. The actual burning takes place around midnight on the 19th, going on 20th, but it depends a bit on the availability of fire crews to make sure that the bonfire doesn't get out of control. Lots of the monuments are surrounded by impressive displays of lights. Visitors may not notice but the locals are often as interested in the lighting around the Falla as they are about the impressiveness of the monument itself.
The Fallas are based on the celebration of Saint Joseph, so there are any number of masses and religious events during Fallas but, for your average non believer, the days during the celebrations start with some unrepentant bands wandering around making a lot of noise from 8am each morning. The Fallas wouldn't be the Fallas without fireworks so expect lots of loud explosions too from the same time.
Each day, at 2pm, the Mascletà is set off. The Fallera Mayor gives the order from the Town Hall balcony. Various firework companies get the job of designing a soundscape in fireworks. There is hardly anything fired into the air, just batteries of fireworks that go bang, bang, bang, bang a bang. Lots of the bangers are hung from washing line type supports. This year I noticed on the telly that one of the mascletas featured blue and yellow, Ukrainian coloured, smoke. The crescendo usually produces a rolling, rumbling thunder which is easy to appreciate. I've heard a mascletà booming out beside a rock band - each one alternately taking up the melody. Once upon a time it was easy enough to get quite close to the bangers in Valencia but nowadays they are set off in a cage type structure and the crowd is kept well back. I think all of the local Commissions have their own mascletá at some time. I remember one time, years ago, staying with friends and going to check that my hire car was OK. I found that it was the only car left on the street and that it was now parked under lots of mascletá type bangers. I had to drive down steps to extract it because they'd built a Falla on my obvious escape route!
There is also a huge firework display each night at midnight in the river bed. It's an hour later when the flower offering, the Ofrenda is on.
Away from fire and explosions one of the events I like is where all of the Commissions make their flower offering to the Virgen de los Desamparados. She's actually a big wooden frame that's set up in the square by the side of the Cathedral and all of the Commissions arrange for lots of their people to parade to the square with offerings of flowers. The people parade into the square for three or four hours on two separate days! Somebody makes a design each year for the cape that the Virgin wears so each of the Commissions is asked to bring this or that colour flower to make up the final design. Each Commission, usually led by their Fallera, troops into the square almost certainly with their band playing the tune Valencia. The clothes they wear are spectacular, the men less so than the women, but even the men look pretty dapper. The women's frocks can, apparently, cost as much as 20,000€ but I understand that most cost a couple of thou. Given that there are 392 Commissions in the 2022 Fallas and just short of 100,000 registered participants the clothes themselves must be quite an industry.
As you might imagine there is a fair bit of revelry associated with the Fallas. Each Commission will arrange street parties which are called verbenas. There are set rules about when and how but I think there are three nights, starting at 10 and going on till 4am, when there are dances in the street with musicians and DJs. When they're not allowed to have the street celebrations they put the music inside the big tents that each of the Commissions sets up. If you're in Valencia during Fallas don't expect to get a lot of sleep.
What else? If you do go buy yourself some of the buñuelos, the doughnut type things that are actually made from pumpkin. A bit of a variation on the churros and porros theme. And, if you feel like it, buy some of the little bangers, the petardos, so you can hold your own in the firework throwing stakes.
Quite a few snaps somewhere in this album of March 2022 photos.
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