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    Las Fallas de Valencia

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    Las Fallas is a 5-day festival in Valencia, Spain celebrating Saint Joseph and the arrival of spring. A key part of the festival involves large papier-mâché statues called "ninots" that are crafted throughout the year and placed around the city, depicting satirical scenes and politicians. On the final night, the ninots are set on fire in a chaotic scene at midnight, as fireworks explode from cleverly hidden holes. One ninot is spared each year and put on display. The origins of Las Fallas involve pagan spring rituals of burning wooden structures, and today it remains a raucous celebration of fire, music, and satire.

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    Las Fallas de Valencia

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    api-340366174
    115 views1 page
    Las Fallas is a 5-day festival in Valencia, Spain celebrating Saint Joseph and the arrival of spring. A key part of the festival involves large papier-mâché statues called "ninots" that are crafted throughout the year and placed around the city, depicting satirical scenes and politicians. On the final night, the ninots are set on fire in a chaotic scene at midnight, as fireworks explode from cleverly hidden holes. One ninot is spared each year and put on display. The origins of Las Fallas involve pagan spring rituals of burning wooden structures, and today it remains a raucous celebration of fire, music, and satire.

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    las fallas de valencia

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    Las Fallas is a 5-day festival in Valencia, Spain celebrating Saint Joseph and the arrival of spring. A key part of the festival involves large papier-mâché statues called "ninots" that are crafted throughout the year and placed around the city, depicting satirical scenes and politicians. On the final night, the ninots are set on fire in a chaotic scene at midnight, as fireworks explode from cleverly hidden holes. One ninot is spared each year and put on display. The origins of Las Fallas involve pagan spring rituals of burning wooden structures, and today it remains a raucous celebration of fire, music, and satire.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    115 views1 page

    Las Fallas de Valencia

    Uploaded by

    api-340366174
    Las Fallas is a 5-day festival in Valencia, Spain celebrating Saint Joseph and the arrival of spring. A key part of the festival involves large papier-mâché statues called "ninots" that are crafted throughout the year and placed around the city, depicting satirical scenes and politicians. On the final night, the ninots are set on fire in a chaotic scene at midnight, as fireworks explode from cleverly hidden holes. One ninot is spared each year and put on display. The origins of Las Fallas involve pagan spring rituals of burning wooden structures, and today it remains a raucous celebration of fire, music, and satire.

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    LAS FALLAS DE VALENCIA

    Las Fallas is undoubtedly one of the most unique and crazy festivals in Spain. Then again, Spain is a country known
    for its unique and odd fiestas. What started as a feast day for St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, has evolved
    into a 5-day, multifaceted celebration involving fire. Valencia, a quiet city with a population of just over 1 million,
    swells to an estimated three million flame-loving revelers during Las Fallas celebrations.
    Las Fallas literally means "the fires" in Valencian. The focus of the fiesta is the creation and destruction
    of ninots (puppets or dolls), which are huge cardboard, wood, paper-mach and plaster statues. The ninots are
    extremely lifelike and usually depict bawdy, satirical scenes and current events. A popular theme is poking fun at
    corrupt politicians and Spanish celebrities. The labor intensive ninots, often costing up to US$75,000, are crafted by
    neighborhood organizations and take almost the entire year to construct. Many ninots are several stories tall and need
    to be moved into their final location of over 350 key intersections and parks around the city with the aid of cranes on
    the day of la plant (the rising).
    The ninots remain in place until March 19th, the day known as La Crem (the burning). Starting in the early evening,
    young men with axes chop cleverly-hidden holes in the statues and stuff them with fireworks. The crowds start to
    chant, the streetlights are turned off, and all of the ninots are set on fire at exactly 12 a.m. (midnight). Over the years,
    the local bomberos (firemen) have devised unique ways to protect the town's buildings from being accidentally set on
    fire by the ninots: such as neatly covering storefronts with fireproof tarps. Each year, one of the ninots is spared from
    destruction by popular vote. This ninot is called the ninot indultat (the pardoned puppet) and is exhibited in the
    local Museum of the Ninot along with the other favorites from years past.
    Traveler and pyromaniac Janet Morton says, "The scene at Las Fallas is extremely cathartic and difficult to describe,
    but resembles a cross between a bawdy Disneyland, the Fourth of July, and the end of the world!"
    The origin of las Fallas is a bit murky, but most credit the fires as an evolution of pagan rituals that celebrated the
    onset of spring and the planting season. In the sixteenth century, Valencia used streetlights only during the longer
    nights of winter. The street lamps were hung on wooden structures, called parots, and as the days became longer the
    now-unneeded parots were ceremoniously burned on St. Joseph's Day. Even today the fiesta has retained its satirical
    and working-class roots, and the well-to-do and faint-of-heart of Valencia often ditch out of town during Las Fallas.
    Besides the burning of the ninots, there is a myriad of other activities during the fiesta. During the day, you can enjoy
    an extensive roster of bullfights, parades, paella contests and beauty pageants around the city. Spontaneous fireworks
    displays explode everywhere during the days leading up to La Crema, but the highlight is the daily masclet which
    occurs in the Plaza Ayuntamiento at exactly 2pm. When the string-lined firecrackers are ignited, the thunderous,
    rythmitic sounds they make can be considered music as the sound intensifies in volume. Those firecrackers timed to
    fall to the ground literally shake the floor for next ten minutes, as the masclet is more for auditive enjoyment than
    visual.

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