Valencia: San Jose Fallas Celebration, 14.-19. March
An exciting spectacle is happening in Valencia from the 14th until the 19th of March each and every year – The San Jose Fallas Celebration. The whole city participates in those festivities, which start with building gigantic cardboard figures called the ninots, some of them reaching up to 20 meters in height. Usually the ninots are based on an agreed topic each year, which mostly implies satirical implementation of political happenings or other news of celebrities.
The ninots are displayed during the week and the festivities in the city continue with shows, parades, theatres, or music and little fireworks are to be seen basically at all times, enhancing every night until the final ‘Night of Fire’, when not only the fireworks start burning. The event is called Fallas (torches) for a reason, because all the elaborated ninots will be burned in the last night and the peak of the festivity. For a while the whole city is covered in the heat of the burning puppets and the people are celebrating a huge outdoor party.
This event is definitely worth a visit and combines old Valencian tradition with new and modern ways of celebration, for example the astonishing firework shows.