How to maximise Valencia's Fallas festival

You may notice a lot of noise and colour on the streets of the Comunidad Valenciana between now and March 20. The Fallas, the region’s biggest festival, aren’t quiet.

Nearly every street corner has papier mâché caricatures of current events, politicians, and celebrities, as well as a smaller, cuter version for children that depicts fairytales and popular cartoons. Crowds in traditional regional dress appear to live, eat, drink, and sleep in the giant marquée next to them.

These massive monuments, known as fallas (with a lower-case ‘f’; the festival is the Fallas, with a capital ‘F’), are usually built on or before March 16 and burned down ceremoniously on March 19—Saint Joseph’s Day and Father’s Day in Spain.

Following the painstaking artwork involved in building them, their destruction may seem a travesty, but the reasons are practical and traditional: If intact, there’s nowhere to store them year after year, and since they’re topical, the same ones can’t be used again. Since falla sculptors and their studios spend up to 10 months a year on them, reducing them to ashes keeps them employed.

Falleras are girls and women in huge bell-shaped damask, silk, and lace dresses with crinolines and close-fitting bodices and three rolled-up braids. Each falla has a ‘queen’, or fallera mayor. Each town has a ‘head’ fallera mayor, and being chosen is like being Carnival Queen in the Canary Islands, Venice, or Brazil or representing your country in Eurovision.

Mascletaes, or gunpowder banger displays, go off in town centres at 14.00 every day, sometimes with coloured smoke, to make as much noise as possible. They rarely fail.

The Ofrenda, a giant wooden frame topped by Mary’s head, is where falleras leave bouquets with special messages for women in their lives for one day. A flower-based house-sized Mary graces Spanish Instagram sites at the end.

The Fallas are best, biggest, most ‘accessible’ (due to their more universal themes), and most (over 700) in Valencia, Spain’s third-largest metropolis. However, you don’t need to be there to enjoy the festival. For crowd-averse people, a smaller town in Valencia, Castellón, or Pego or Dénia in Alicante is best. These allow you to admire stunning costumes and statues without being surrounded by thousands of people.

Although the Fallas should be at least once in a lifetime for any traveler or Spanish resident, and usually once a year for those near the action, these full-on fiestas are not for everyone. More and more cultural events in Spain, such as fairgrounds, are including’silent days’ and ‘crowd-restricted days’, but the Fallas may be too overwhelming for autistic people or those with sensory overload. If you want to try it, make a ‘escape plan’ and find a quiet place you can go at any time.

Spain’s state news agency EFE has published a series of guidelines for first-time Falla visitors to help them get the most out of the fiesta, which are helpful to anyone who has participated in the fiesta for decades.

Pick your clothes carefully.

If you want to look your best for photos, wear comfortable clothes and shoes since you may be on your feet for a while. The western Mediterranean in March can be bright and warm in the middle of the day and colder at night. If you’re from a northern European country or one with a similar climate, you may want to wear fewer or lighter layers in March, but don’t expect beach weather in eastern Spain until June. March has been warmer in recent years, so you may not need a winter coat, but you should wear a lightweight jacket or coat that you can easily put on and take off.

Food and drink

Fallas can be a stomach-wrenching feast if you’re not used to deep-fried snacks and paella. Try a refreshing and healthy alternative to festival food like fried pumpkin doughnuts and chocolate-dipped churros with a glass of horchata, or sweet tigernut milk, available at street stalls, cafés, or supermarkets in litre cartons for under €2.

Eating well during the Fallas keeps energy levels up, but bring water for long street walks.

The average fallera or fallero doesn’t even hear the word’rest’ during festival week. They attend parades, pageants, float processions, pilgrimages, and parties that begin around 06.00 – breakfast is usually in the marquée, or casal – and end early the next morning. Sleeping three hours a night is considered a lie-in.

Visitors don’t need to keep ‘fiesta hours’, but if it’s your first time at the Fallas, you’ll probably want to join guided tours and planned activities to see what happens behind the scenes. Even without late-night parties and early-morning parades, music and fireworks at ungodly hours may disrupt your sleep.

How to maximise Valencia’s Fallas festival

By ki0nk

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