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Las Fallas
Valencia, Spain. March (annually).
Do you love the smell of gunpowder in the morning? Pyromaniacs, pyro-enthusiasts and the pyro-curious flood to the Spanish city of Valencia in March of every year to witness one of the loudest, most crowded, and rowdiest Spanish fiestas going. It began as a feast day in honour of St. Joseph - the patron saint of carpenters - and has evolved into a bizarre, five-day celebration of fire and flame. Normally a rather serene city with a population of 500,000, Valencia becomes a hedonistic flame-engulfed madhouse for the duration of the fiesta.The festival today focuses primarily on the construction and annihilation of ‘ninots’ – massive statues of cardboard, wood and plaster that are placed at over 350 locations throughout the city. The ninots tend to depict debaucherous, vulgar and sardonic scenes and parody various current events and political affairs at the time of the festival. Crafted by various neighbourhood associations, they take about six months to build and can cost upwards of €60,000 – often becoming so large that cranes are needed to move them into position, where they stay until the 19th of March, or “La Crema”.
La Crema is the day when the lovingly constructed ninots are stuffed with copious amounts of fireworks. The streetlights are turned out, and at the stroke of midnight the ninots are all set alight. What follows is a spectacle that should be seen to be believed. Colourful explosions burst into the dark Valencia night, and the flames from hundreds of burning ninots lick the sky and illuminate an otherwise darkened city. Every year one ninot survives the blaze, having been selected by public vote, and is retired to the Museum of the Ninot where is can rest easy with winners from previous years.
As with many of the more unusual Spanish fiestas , the craziest and chief tourist-attracting event of the fiesta (La Tomatina, Pamplona etc) is still just one activity that happens in the weeklong festivities. In Valencia, La Crema is one night in a week of pageants, performances, paella contests and other special festival events. A daily ‘mascletá’ at 2pm daily in the Plaza Anyuntamiento sees the earth quite literally move for ten minutes as a phenomenally large pile of fireworks is ignited – another of the more dynamic elements of a seriously high-impact Spanish fiesta.
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