Las Fallas 2007

Horns blared, drums beat, and voices boomed. Thousands of people exiting the various trains pulling into Valencia, Spain poured out onto the platforms. You’d have to try very hard or be entirely morose to not let a smile cross your face.

Once you leave the station and realize that the scene was just a partial microcosm of the city as a whole, you´d be similarily hard-pressed to not be in awe: For one week only, this city of 700,000 swelled to 3 million. Every corner of every street oozed walking bodies with either firecrackers or a cold beer in hand. Each neighborhood and many others from the region had constructed huge sculptures, fallas, for everyone to admire. There were 740 of them in all, but on the last day of the celebration they would all be burned to ash with an accompanying fireworks display.

Women in traditional dress queued throughout the city waiting to deliver flowers to the wood-framed body of a 60 foot tall Virgin Mary. Eventually, her entire body would be flora and the excess would climb up an entire wall of the cathedral. When that, too, was full, the plaza became the recipient of all the gifts. It is estimated that 14 tons of flowers were used in total.

Every day at 2 pm, the throngs gather in the main center for the Mascletà. The sound of the fireworks negates every other possible sound. While the noise starts off sounding violent, it makes a vacuum and becomes so all encompassing that it turns peaceful.

(Pictures of all this would be nice, no? Yes, I agree. But I’ve hit a cold streak of computers with USB ports and fast connections, so that will all have to wait. Sorry.)