VALENCIA’S 770 falla monuments are just starting to go up in flames – the children’s versions started their journey to ashes at 22.00, and their winner, the falla Maestro Gozalbo-Conde de Altea, is due for its ‘baptism by fire’ at 22.30.
Half an hour later, the city hall’s own children’s falla will burn.
The city hall falla monuments are hors concours, so they do not pick up prizes and the order of their burning is not dictated by the judges’ verdict.
Otherwise, the cremà, or burning, happens in reverse order with winners going last.
The main falla which won in Valencia city this year is the L’Antiga de Campanar, which is set to be consumed by flames at around 00.30, after the other main fallas go up at about midnight.
Next, a massive airborne firework display above the city hall square will round off the Fallas festival for another year.
Today (Tuesday) was the ‘big day’ for the Fallas fiesta – a second flower-offering, after that in honour of the Virgin Mary on Sunday, is made to Saint Joseph, or San José, after whom the fiesta is named.
This comes just before the final mascletà, or gunpowder banger show, in the city hall square at 14.00, then the ‘parade of fire’ began at 19.00 through the city centre, with lighted torches and hand-held rockets, sparklers and Catherine wheels.
Elsewhere in the region, the children’s fallas started their burning at 21.00, and the winning main ones will be set alight between 23.00 and midnight.
Gandia (Valencia province), whose Fallas festival is one of the biggest outside Valencia city, launched a mascletà in the port for the first time ever, and although its winning monument is normally the one in the central El Prado square, this year’s victor was the falla Vilanova.
Winners in its neighbours, Oliva and Tavernes de la Valldigna, were the Sant Francesc and Cambro respectively.
Four towns in the province of Alicante celebrate the fallas: Calpe, Pamís – a tied hamlet of the larger village of Ondara, and which has just one monument – Dénia, where the winner was the falla Centro, and Pego, where the theft of a ninot or statuette that turned up damaged at the last minute was no barrier to the falla La Font netting first prize.
Today is a bank holiday in the provinces of Valencia and Castellón and in some towns in that of Alicante, although many of those directly involved in the fiestas will have taken tomorrow (Wednesday) off work to recover from five days of round-the-clock eating, drinking, parading and partying.
