Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Las Fallas, Valencia, Spain (March 2020)

Las Fallas (Spanish) or Falles (Valencian) mean "The Fire" in English. It represents a traditional celebration held in commemoration of Saint Joseph (Mary's husband) in the city of Valencia. The term Falles refers to both the celebration and the monuments burnt during the celebration. The Falles was added to UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage or humanity list in 2016.

It starts on March 1 and lasts until March 19. This festival's highlight occurs from March 15 - 19.

During the first two weeks, people watch fireworks that take place in the Plaza in front of the City Hall at 2 PM every day. It lasts for only a few minutes, but people start gathering around 12 noon with beer bottles or soft drinks in their hands. This firework intensifies every day gradually to the last 5 days. We went to one of them on March 5 and the City Plaza was jam-packed with people.







The last day, people set fire and burn a lot of puppets of monumental sizes or called Ninots in Valencia. There are approximately 400 registered groups of people in Valencia, who raise funding to make these puppets over time. We did not stay until the highlight time, but left on March 11. However, I learned later that this year's Las Falles was cancelled due to the COVID 19 outbreak. Understandable. Here are some of the photos that I borrowed from Google.




This concludes my travel blog posts for Valencia. It was a memorable experience to visit Valencia, a very livable city. - Jeffrey

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