Valencia’s Fallas Festival: Welcoming Spring with Fire
Scenes from the festival featuring parades, fireworks, and fiestas, and the burning of hundreds of wooden sculptures
For hundreds of years, residents of Valencia, Spain, have celebrated the arrival of spring and paid tribute to San Jose, the patron saint of the carpenters’ guild, by building, then ceremonially burning huge monuments made of wood, cardboard, and paper. The monuments, or “Fallas,” consist of “ninots,” or figures, that are often caricatures made to portray current events and celebrities. The two-week-long festival features parades, fireworks, and fiestas, and ends with the burning of hundreds of Fallas, signifying cleansing and renewal.
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