Las Fallas: A Festival for Pyromaniacs

Valencia has an awesome festival that they run each year called Las Fallas. Each neighbourhood puts together enormous gravity-defying sculptures of wood, wax and foam which are then burnt a few days later.

Each neighbourhood spends the whole year designing, preparing and making the individual parts of the overall sculpture (or falla) and then on the night of the 15th of March all the sculptures are assembled in the streets.

The awards for best sculptures are handed out and people then come and check out all the sculptures.

They stay on display for 4 days until the night of the 19th, St Joseph’s Day, when they are all set on fire. Except for one small sculpture.

This is the one that has been voted the most popular by the public and is saved. Everything else burns and the streets of Valencia are filled with fire and smoke.

It’s not just the adults who get involved, there are awards for the kid’s sculptures too. These are far better than anything I ever saw in art class at school.

In the centre of the city there are sculptures every couple of blocks with the biggest ones towering over nearby buildings. There were over 750 sculptures this year and some of them were over 15m tall.

While the sculptures are out on display people go around visiting them, people from each neighbourhood dress up in traditional costumes and parade through the streets with marching bands, giant firecracker displays are set off and each night there is a big fireworks display.

There are so many sculptures around that it’s impossible to see them all.

We covered an average of 25km each day we were there. We kept coming up with plans to see the most popular ones only to get lost or distracted along the way by other sculptures, or parades, or firecrackers. Every kid you see in the street will be throwing firecrackers.

When we first got there we were spinning around constantly every time we heard a bang, even though the locals didn’t even break their stride while they walked down the street as big ones were set off. After a while we got used to them. But the ones that just went bang did get annoying after a while and I got good at spotting and avoiding the evil little kids with their wooden boxes of firecrackers chucking them into my path.

The organised pyrotechnic displays put on by the neighbourhoods are full of impressive ear bleeding explosions. We were up close to one of the displays and you could feel the booms in your bones. I had to put my fingers in my ears through it, while the guys organising it stood right next the firecrackers without even flinching. I think the people of Valencia must be deaf after going through this every year.

Finally, on the night of the 19th of March everyone gathers around their favourite sculptures to watch them burn.

It’s a serious operation as there are firefighters hosing down the buildings all through the burning. The sculptures are set alight by fireworks embedded inside them and it only takes a minute or two for the flames to take hold.

There’s plenty of cheering by the crowds as the sculptures are first lit and then when they come crashing down after the support structure has burnt out.

Then to officially close the celebrations the huge sculpture outside the town hall goes up in flames with a big fireworks display.

After this the unoffical celebrations go on into the night with people setting off every last spare firework or firecracker they have available. The next day when you can’t hear any more explosions you’re not sure if it’s because the celebrations are over or if it’s because you’ve gone completely deaf.

It’s an awesome festival to be at if you can get over all the fantastic and beautiful sculptures going up in smoke.

And to finish off here’s a pic of a lemur at the zoo.