Vivid Valencia - Bursting with colors

Tobias Heller
18. März 2017
7 Min. Lesezeit

We finally have to say goodbye to Barcelona to make our way to Valencia, where the popular Las Fallas takes part. It is a traditional festival, during which lots of wooden figures called "Fallas"partly reaching the circumference of a house in hight and width will be placed all around the city. The event takes it's final end with the act of simply destroying all of those handcrafted, unique pieces by burning them (sounds like a pretty barbaric way to destroy hours and hours of work). We have to get up early to get in the train this morning, leaving from Barcelona train station and we encounter lots of other travelers and weekend trippers, who take a similar way apparently as the train is more than overloaded. We make ourselves comfortable on the floor, as all seats are taken. Time for learning spanish, taking a nap or reading as the ride will take us about 4 hours.

Festival

Las Fallas - Amazing Artwork

We arrive and search for our couchsurfing host Maria and her mother Maria-Jose, who pick us up at the train station and bring us to their home close to the beach of Valencia. And here - coming with a wonderful smell up in the air - is an unexpected surprise waiting for us: homemade Paella! Eager to taste our first Paella in Spain, and we have been waiting for it, this appears to be a quite welcomed surprise as the original real Paella is made in Valencia. It later spread allover in Spain, and it is the typical food that you often connect with spanish culture. After this delicious meal we start to make our tour into the busy center to see the prize winning Fallas of that year, as there are about 300 ones spread all over in the city and we wouldn't like to miss the best ones in the main city squares.

The streets are filled with tourists, colorful balloons are on every corner as well as various street food, souvenirs and market boots selling various colorful sugared sweets, as well as churros, a Spanish sweet dough fried in oil and with sugar spread on it often coming with a hot chocolate. The winners of this years contest are so large, the fill up the whole square and measure several meter of hight, rising nearly similarly high than surrounding buildings. I really wonder how they manage to set those things on fire, while maintaining control of the fire with he walls so near. All the Fallas are filled with so many details, circling around offers a new aspect all the time. The displayed figures are quite kitschy, and a very playful creation, though the size and amount of details is amazing

Late evening people gather at the outskirts of the center along the river bed in order to watch the firework. Expecting a smaller firework I am quite impressed by the pompous firework which illuminates the black night sky, giving it a tint of color that moves along the nightly canvas. After the firework, we walk to the next tram station in order to go to the other side of the city, where our beds would wait for us to lie down and process all those many colorful impressions during our sleep.

Check out some of the Fallas we encountered during Las Fallas on the Gallery (and be aware that this is only a little selection and I guess we haven't even seen half of them during our stay.

Sightseeing & Architecture

La ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias - Into Futuristic Space

Despite the festival going on, Gianfranco and I take our time to explore the cities attractions as well, this morning getting up late as it got quite late the previous night. Along the beach we stroll to the harbour and from there make our way to the "ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias", which consists of a space with several futuristic spacy buildings and has a very unique architectural style. Once arriving at the main square which is covered with clear not too deep water in a white basin, you'll find yourself in a somehow weird surrounding. Landed on another planet? Jumped directly into a sci-fi movie? Strangely I feel comfortable in that place, the clean open space with the broad water surface which ripples slightly with the soft wind, the colors which seem like saturation has been set very low only ranging from white to light aqua blue makes the place more quiet and relaxing, whereas the dynamic columns and structure makes it vivid an lively on the contrary. Allover a space that awakes my interest and makes me want to linger around here longer.

Sightseeing & Citytour

Besides the Fallas - Other Matters

Despite the ongoing Fallas we also look at some sightseeing points in the city. From 'La ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias' we walk back to the center in the former river bed, which is now fully overgrown by meadows and trees and turned into a long park over which bridges are connecting the center with the outbounds of Valencia. We walk through the Gulliver's Park, a large playground for kids, which depicts a modern version of Gulliver being tied to the ground, while his body is made of slopes, stairs, tunnels and various formations for children to climb. Speaking of which, they could also happen to be two grown up adults called Gianfranco and Tobi, who accidentally get lost along Gulliver's body.

In the center we we walk up the stony stairways of Torres de Serranos to enjoy a better view over Valencia and stroll around once more in the crowded city, in order to have a look at several buildings such as the church on the go, as well as the Mercat de Colon, a beautiful old market hall with several cafes and bars.

Festival & Parade

Artworks all Around

Despite the city anyways bursting with color, the city in without Fallas seems to me also very artistic and beautiful. Cities with art on the walls, graffitis and furthermore win over my heart quickly, and Valencia indeed offers a great array of wonderful paintings amidst it's central streets, ready to be discovered, while strolling through the city.

Festival & Parade

Sparks & Splash of Fire - A Pretaste

We meet up with our host Maria and her boyfriend again in order to watch the Fallas parade, which takes part in the center. Thousands of people have gathered here to see the show and the side of the streets are crowded already even though the show would be starting in about an hour. We file into the mass of human bodies, eagerly waiting as Maria already explained what is about to happen. Then they arrive, under the beat of drums, men dressed in orange suits, carrying long sticks with them, which - ones lit - start to spread a fountain of sparks high up into the air. Altogether they start swinging the sticks in a wild and fanatic beat, spreading sparks in every direction and illuminating the dark street. Huge wheels on fire crash by with the orange clothed men, a crazy looking creature on high stilts measuring several meters walks by with wide steps and a huge dragon formed group of people sends smoke and sparks out of it's massive body. Then a huge Robot with an enormous fan representing his eye appears. He is carrying a man in futuristic metallic garment who keeps playing the e-guitar, metallic dreadlocks dangling down into his face, blueish flashlights giving the whole scene a surrealistic science fiction appearance once more.

Festival

What remains is ashes - Burning of the Fallas

Time has come, it is Sunday and Las Fallas will find its climax. As sad and astonishing as it sounds, all the Fallas will find their inevitable death by fire today and will go up in a spectacular burst of flames. As we can't participate in all the extraordinary vandalism, we pick a nice Falla off the center so we would be able to find a well located place for the spectacle. From afar we already see extremely bright shining tunnel consisting of thousands single lights, those appearance is so utterly kitschy but yet through the light's somehow impressive as well. During Fallas great light shows have been performed here, and similarly we have seen one in the center.

The whole Falla is surrounded by a fence in order to keep people at distance for the fire show. Standing there we sit down on the ground eager not to loose our good places, and once the "bombers" arrive, the local firemen, which ensure security as buildings are just next to the Fallas. They prepare the walls of the adjacent houses by splashing them with a squirt of water, making them water in order to stand the heat which will soon explode from the Fallas in a wave. Then time has come, a smaller firework starts to indicate the start of the fire and subsequently the explosive fuse is lit and the rope sets on fire under sparks, making it's way to the Falla, summoning it's unpreventable death. First only lots of smoke engulfs the wooden figures, then the whole find bursts into blazing flames and grows larger and larger. The first thing to collapse is a pirates enormous face, then other parts of the Structure vanish amidst the flames. The heat of the fire gets intense, and when another explosion of fire comes up, the whole crowd steps back. My cheeks begin to burn, showing me that I underestimated the intensity of the fire which is actually several meters away.

All the while during the ongoing destruction, firemen control the collapse and fires with splashes of water, continuously rinsing the walls of the houses with water. The smell of burning wood and smoke is intense and makes me wonder how many toxic fumes we all are breathing in while watching this. Finally the sub construction of the Fallas is the last things to stand, and from the flames a cloud of fervently glowing ashes is evaporating into the air above. Funnily enough, the whole scene now reminds me of a weird doomsday scenario, with worlds end close by. In total, I can say it was an interesting and entertaining thing to attend to, and the images that litarally burned themselves into my head will remain there forever.