We arrived in Valencia during the Fallas Festival. Throughout the city people in various neighborhoods had built over 600 Fallas creations -very elaborate and beautifully finished statues made of papier mache and other materials. Some are beautiful, some comical, some Disney and other fictional characters and some quite crude "political" commentaries. All of these were burned up on the last night of the festival, our second night there.. The Fallas festival originated in the 16th century when carpenters started to burn wood scraps in the streets out side their shops to clear out the winter debris, celebrate spring and honor St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. People in the neighborhoods started making statues from the scraps and burned them in the marshes, We enjoyed the Fallas experience. Besides statues and fires, noise seemed to be the major element - fire works were going off and bands were playing all day and almost all night. Hard to see how any of this connects to St. Joseph. I need to do some research on this.
Each year the best sculpture creation is kept and put in a museum, all others are burned on the last night of the festival. The smaller Fallas creations (generally less than 12 feet tall) were burned at 10pm with fireworks and bands. These were for the children and a little beautifully dressed "Mary" lit the one that we watched burn near our hotel.The larger creations can reach to 30 feet tall. We watched the midnight burning from our hotel window - just a side view. The noise went on til long after midnight.. While we stood watching the fireworks ashes were falling all around us. Our guide had assured us that firemen were posted around the city to guard against buildings
catching on fire but we didn't see any sign of them. Nevertheless, everyone, was playing with fire, even little kids, but no one seemed to get hurt.
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