Taking off the skirts!

Luna Rossa's Skirt - ©Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

This Sunday, as if there wasn't enough to do with the Nit en Vela (see a previous entry) Mike Oldfield (see a bit further back) Beginning with, guess what, a firework display(!) at 9 am, The Teams of America's Cup unveil all their boats.
The day before, each of the teams will have declared up to two boats each to race in the Louis Vuitton Regattas and the America's Cup.
Sunday, each team will unveil their jealously guarded secrets - the hull. It is all happening for the press from 9am - but is open to the public from 1130am - when all the team houses will be open to the public. the day ends with a light show from Endesa
More on this and the schedule for the day can be seen by clicking the linked headline to this article.

Glitz, Glamour and Bling at the Mercado Central

The beautiful Mercado Central - photo ©workman

THE place to be, if you are lucky enough to be one of the 1,500 Very Important Invited Guests, on 15 April will be the Mercado Central in Valencia.
This beautiful market, which will have completed its Major restoration just in time for the event, will be the scene of a truly glitzy evening hosted by Italy's high class fashion label Prada. 'Leaked' attendees include Angelina Jollie, Brad Pitt, Sharon Stone and a host of stars. All to celebrate the Louis Vuitton Regattas.
Prada are said to have paid each stallholder in the Market 350 euros each to stay open and serve delicacies to the guests. Banqueting tables will be laid out in the central aisles and there will be entertainment. (Fireworks as well, no doubt, as this is Valencia!)
So get down there, with your rubbernecks!
And see the Glitz, Glamour and Bling at the Mercado Central!!!

And so, the sailing begins in earnest, The Louis Vuitton Regattas

Alinghi the current holder of the America's Cup

The Louis Vuitton Regattas take place in Valencia from the 3rd to the 07th of April, It will be the only opportunity to see Alinghi and all the 11 Challengers Race together. From then on in it is the Louis Vuitton Round Robins, which take place from the 16th April through to the 07th June, when the teams will be knocked out until there is only one challenger left to battle it out on the waves for the Prestigious America's Cup. This huge international event takes place in Europe for the first time in over one hundred years. The full timetable can be found by clicking on the headline

Nit en Vela

Nit en Vela takes place on saturday night 31 March 2007
If you click the headline you can get the timetable and map of this exciting event

White Night in Valencia, Only it's called NIT EN VELA

Paradox Company


New York's Luma


Les Passagers


France's Compromises Express


Valencia celebrates the America's Cup on the night of the 31st of March with eight hours of uninterupted music, dance, theatre, spectacle and performance along two routes in the centre of the city. Nit en Vela is Valencia's answer to the White Nights that have been happening in European cities in the past couple of years, it promises to be a wonderful evening - much more by clicking on the headline.

Vive Valencia, the company formed by the Generalitat and the City council of Valencia to celebrate and promote the XXXII edition of the America's Cup, has organized a 'White Night', or Nit en Vela as they are calling it, on the night of 31 of March. Eight uninterrupted hours of spectacles and cultural activities as “a playful-festive support” the America's Cup.

Fallas Facts and Figures

THE OFRENDA IN LA PLAZA DE LE VIRGEN


A FALLA


THE BIGGEST FALLA AT NOU CAMPANAR

THE PAELLA PAN FOR 500


Now that the festival of Fallas is truly over you might like a few facts and figures.
103,647 Falleras took part in the ofrenda this year, walking through the city to offer their flowers to the Virgen de los Desamparados in the Plaza de la Virgen.
Because of the high winds of up 80Km on Monday night - the Crema took longer than usual with the last ones burning at around 4am. Some, Carcaxiente and Naquera were not burnt at all, and the cremas for these two places are, Carcaxiente, tonight and Naquera on Saturday.
Nou Campanar, the biggest Falla this year and the overall winner cooked a Paella for 500 people on monday. That's 50kilos of rice and 7 litres of Olive oil and 200 kilos of wood to cook it on! An estimated 120 million people are said to have watched the Crema at Nou Campanar, thanks to BBC World, CNN, and other satellite tv channels.
It Hurts! The Red Cross looked after 115 people in the streets during Fallas for injuries from fireworks. The looked after a total of 940.
Confiscated - the police confiscated a total of 1,273 dangerous rockets from people in the streets
Churros - 80 kilos of churros were confiscated from street stalls considered to be not up to standard.
Rubbish from Fallas - this year the city had to clear up 9,610 tons, 1,470 tons more than last year.
Vandalism was down this year. Wastebins and Rubbish Containers are the favourite targets and this year 1,093 wastebins (53 less than 2006) and 104 Rubbish containers (31 less than 2006) were damaged and will have to be replaced. Total cost to the city 79,054 Euros. The whole cleaning bill will cost 295,000 euros, an increase of 24% over last year. This all sounds a lot until you think that during the festival over 2 million people visited the city and Fallas has generated 60 Million Euros.
Roll on Fallas 2008!

America's Cup. The Trophy arrives in Valencia

Photo ©ACM2007/photo:Stefano Gattini

The America's Cup trophy finally arrived in Valencia yesterday, after a trip from Geneva through Paris.

11 challengers begin battling for the Louis Vuitton Cup in April and the winner will have earned the right to fight Alinghi for the America's Cup beginning June 23rd.

The Gigli Tower

For the past week or so some very agile men from the Italian town of Nola have been very busy with lots of planed down trunks of wood, building an extremely high and very spindly looking tower in the Plaza Manises (just around the corner from the Plaza de la Virgen) . It was finally finished yesterday morning and since then it has been a hive of activity with a lunch party and then, last night a large and noisy Verbena taking place until the early hours of the morning.
I managed to find out from some friendly Italians that this tower is built during a festival in Nola each year and is a little like the Virgen in the main square, Gigli is Lilly in English and, like the wooden Virgin in the ofrenda, floral tributes are bought to the tower. It will be interesting to see if any of the Ofrenda flowers make their way to Gigli.

America's Cup. United Internet Team in Training 2

The United Internet Team's boats make a turn

America's Cup. Desafio 2007 boat being lifted into place

On our way to the United Internet Team Germany's 'house' we had to wait whilst a crane lifted the Spanish Challenger's Boat on to their key - Over the top of their 'house'

America's Cup. United Internet Team in Training

Thisisvalencia.com spent a very pleasant day in the company of the United Internet Team Germany on Tuesday. We were given a tour of the German 'house', met members of the team and were then taken out on a launch to watch the team training in both their boats, GER89 and GER72. More on all this later, but we thought we'd share some of the photos with you first. A little later, we'll be posting some footage of the boats in action.

Get your Fallas On!

This Fallas, if you fancy something a bit different to your usual Verbenas and festive Falleros, then the Groovelives group has it all thought out especially for you. Piccadilly, Latex, 47 and Chill Out all have extraspesh activities for the week starting tonight with an appearance from Nacho Vidal, Spain's most notorious Porn Actor at Piccadilly. Tomorrow, Thursday, the new addition to the Groovelives group, 47 Pub (what was La Guerra on C/Quart nº47) will hold a preparty with free tickets to the Populent Festi at Latex - get down there from 2am where Nito Niko, Rajoy Division, Unai Nº6, Bacalao era veteran Nacho Canut will take to the booths plus a special session from Madel and mine and Lolita's favourites, Gaydjteam.
If you're peckish during the day, Chill Out* on the Calle Baja will once again be the official Groovelives "Casal" (see our newsletter!) and Chocolate and Paella as well as their usual energy milkshakes, cocktails and more will be on offer all Fallas. After Fallas, 47 will stay closed until it is completely ready to open with its new multispace status for cinema, vjs, djs, art and more. Stay tuned to thisisvalencia.com for more news.
Anita Darling

Mike Oldfield and Tears for Fears in Valencia 30March

Mike Oldfield, Tears For Fears, Ana Toroja, Chico & The Gypsies, Tony Henry , John Miles , Rosa Cedron, Robert Groslot , IL Novecento, Fine Fluer all appear at the Velodrome in Valencia as part of the Spanish tour of Night of the Proms. It's a mixture of classical and pop music with a full orchestra and the atmosphere is said to be like that of the last night of the proms at the Royal Albert Hall, more info from www.notp.com

More mascletas daily!

Those of you who, like us, adore the 2pm ritual of the fireworks and the accompanying extreme noise of the daily Mascletas in Valencia, are in for a treat - click on the headline to be taken to our Fallas Firwork page where we have each day's performance very soon after the live event. You can watch them all there, from day one to the end of the festival, updated daily. The bar to the right of each film shows the decibels. We recommend the Mascletà from the 07th March as being the best so far!
And if you want to know more about fallas, there is more and more on the site each day as it approaches.

The First of March - Fallas First Official Mascleta

It's a beautiful hot day here in Valencia and today was the first fully official Mascletà. And what a Mascletà! The rest of the nineteen will have a lot to live up to -and before any one coments to say there are only 18 more - don't forget the Mascleta on the beach at Malvarrosa this coming Sunday!

Let us know if you want us to keep posting the good ones!