Rita, the Mayoress of Valencia at Mascletà in Fallas

Every day in Fallas at precisely 2.00pm there is a Mascletà, a gloriously noisy firework display that is so popular that the city population swells to watch and to listen, It is so popular it is also played live on the television and indeed, the radio!!
Valencia's larger than life Mayoress is there on the balcony each day with the Falleras and her guest to watch and then to sing the hymn of Valencia.

Sunday in the Park

A lovely day today here in the city - Feria de Julio has started and we went to watch the Preselections for next years Falleras, the queens of Las Fallas Every March. If you don't know about Fallas read all about this fantastic festival here
The Gardens in front of the Palau de la Música were buzzing with people taking in the early evening breeze over a drink in one of the Terazzas or playing with radio controlled speedboats. Or doing some amazing skating!
Tomorrow in the same place - a free Jazz concert at 10pm more on this concert and the whole of the Feria de Julio here

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!

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.

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

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!

Let the Mascletas begin!

Tomorrow the 01st of march is the first of the 19 Macletàs in the Town Hall Square in Valencia, The Ayuntamiento. At 2pm sharp each day, this one is by PEÑARROJA of Vall d'Uixó.
A specially constructed steel mesh cage is in place in the square to protect the audience, which grows and grows over the next days until it is hard to find a place to stand any where near it.

The Crida - The celebration Mascleta

It's a slightly overcast day in Valencia, but the Mascletà was good.
What's a Mascletà? you ask.
It's a daytime firework display, so noisy that you are advised to keep your mouth open to avoid damage to your eardrums!
A mascletà traditionally takes place at 2pm every day from the 01 March to to the 19th (thanks to anonymous for pointing out our mistake in saying the 20th!) in the Ayuntamiento. (the City's Town Hall Square) They get better and longer as Fallas progresses.
Turn up the volume for this one!

The Crida - Fallas is officially launched today

Today is the day Fallas is launched to the public in Valencia. It all started at 8am this morning with a fantastic display of fireworks in the Ayuntmiento, the city's Town Hall Square. This was followed by a mass breakfast for all the Falleras and Falleros. Then the brass bands assembled in the Plaza de la Virgen (pictured above), to play and march to the Ayuntamiento. Then there's a huge mascleta, daytime fireworks.
At 8pm this evening the place to be is the Torres de Serrano, where there will be more bands, a light show and you'll get to see the Fallera Mayor and her court, followed by more fireworks, probably.

The Bulls, The Bulls!

Fallas is almost upon us, the maddest festival by far in Spain and possibly the world.
It's also time for the Plaza de Toros to come into its own for two weeks, Bullfights everyday. we have the timetable and a little explanation of this sport/art/abberation (depending on your point of view). We also offer you a glossary of the terms associated with this Spanish obsession (all except Barcelona, who have decided they don't like it)

More on the Ninots exhibition

One of our fine readers, Paul BK, inspired by this very blog, got the family together on Sunday and went to the Exhibition of Ninots we talked about at the Nuevo Centro
He very kindly sent a raft of photos - some of which we publish here for your pleasure.
They are usually satirical, a comment on the politicians and life in Spain and the world. When they are finally erected in the streets and plazas of Valencia on the night of La Planta (the planting), they are each accompanied by 4 line poems - Prizes go to not only the Ninots (Papier Mache Sculptures but to these, very important little satirical verses.
Thanks to PBK!

Not unlike a saucy seaside postcard

A children's ninot

A very unkind one of Rita Barbéra -Valencia's Mayor

HRH Juan Carlos and the Princess Letitia




Some of the ruder Ninots

Fallas begins with an exhibition of Ninots

Fallas really got under way yesterday with the opening of the Exhibition of Ninots on an extremely hot day, at Nuevo Centro. There were demonstrators with placards outside, against the banning of the fireworks for children, and in response to the news from Tenerife that part of the Carnavale has been banned because of noise. Valencians are worried that Fallas will be next affected.

Though Mayoress Rita Barbèra, below arriving to open the exhibition, has publically stated that she will not allow Fallas to be affected

At one o'clock the first Mascleta was set off- quite a small one and the wind was high so the coloured smokes didn't hang around. But it was good and loud!

We snapped the firemen leaving after the show was over, they were not the ones in the Calendar we talked about last month!
The Exhibition, by the way is open every day from 10.00h to 20.30h and is 2euros for adults and 1euro for children

First no Smokes, now no Bangers

Pity the poor shopkeeper in Valencia.
More specifically the Estanquo (paper shop) owners. In January they were forbidden to sell tobacco any longer. It is now only sold in official Tabacleras (tobacco shops) or from machines in bars. The machines now have to be in the off position until the bar owner has ascertained the age of the prospective customer, only then can he switch it on!

But that is by the way, back to the estanquos - now they are no longer allowed to sell fireworks! Their ascociation reckons they will each lose around 12,000 euros in sales during Fallas and are urging the Generalitat to give dispensation for the three weeks of the fiesta.

Let's not even go down the road of the proposed abolishment of Siesta and the ramifications of that!
Ohhhhh, the EU has so much to answer for!

for regularly updated info, as we get it, click the title of this entry

A few less bangs. Possibly.

Fallas is almost upon us. The first Mascletà of the proceedings is at Nuevo Centro on Saturday 10 February to celebrate the opening of the exhibition of Ninots (papier Maché sculptures) for this year's fiesta. If you haven't experienced a mascletà it's worth a trip to the plaza in front of El Corte Ingles just befor the river on the cv35 to experience a tamer one before seeing the big ones in the Town Hall Square each day from the first of March.
But something curious, and smelling distinctly like EU Political Correctness reared its head over the weekend.
As of yesterday it is illegal for youngsters under 12 to purchase or let off fireworks in the streets. If you have ever been in a Valencia street (or a street in any village or town in this neck of the woods) during Fallas you will know that it is a bit like being in a war zone. Firecrackers and Pertados (bangers) going off all around you day and night. A lot are in the hands of children, who seem to have no fear and toss them all over the place, though rarely at people or animals. A good friend is a surgeon who works at one of the hospitals. I remember years ago, when we first arrived on these shores and were horrified at how young these kids were, asking him how the hospitals coped with what must be a huge amount of casualties. His response was that, actually, there are very few considering and went on to explain fireworks are so much part of the culture here that kids grow up with a certain respect for these loud bangers.
Many of the Casals (Fallas groups) are up in arms and have asked the Generalitat to lift the ban - we shall see.
I doubt we'll notice a difference in the noise levels though.
To read more on Fallas got to http://www.thisisvalencia.com/fallas-intro.html and keep revisiting as we tell you all about it over the next 3 weeks.