Well, it's getting closer.
The Fallas season officially starts this Saturday, 15 March at midnight with Plantà, the erection of around 350 Fallas statues across the city, and ends with their torching at La Cremà at midnight on Wednesday 19 March - Saint Joseph's Day. The daily Mascletàs continue (after a brief cessation on Saturday as a mark of respect, following a terrorist murder in Northern Spain). Today's Mascletà appears below and they really are getting louder every day (though yesterday's may well have been an exception - admittedly we were standing much closer but the sound was absolutely deafening and the 'drum roll' effect continued for the best part of a minute - the buildings and the ground shook all around us). We cannot understand how any windows remain in their frames with explosions of such veracity continuing for around six or seven minutes daily. One thing though: having felt rather ambivalent towards Mascletàs before we saw our first one 'up front and personal', we now totally understand the excitement and the attraction as well as the artistry. God knows how much each session costs - or who pays - but fireworks seem to be the stock-in-trade of Valencia and it seems the pyrotechnic companies continue to outdo each other at every available opportunity. Even tonight another spectacular took place down in the riverbed - presumably another corporate junket.
I hope to find time to cover some of the history of Fallas in one of my subsequent blogs, but meanwhile there are a number of worthwhile online resources available including Fallas from Valencia, Wikipedia and the official Fallas.com website.
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2 comments:
Well done on the vids Brian -- when's your BBC4 series coming out then? Unfortunately my Virgin Media internet connection seems to have got the electronic equivalent of asthma recently and I can only enjoy the fireworks in fits and starts -- but that kind of adds to the effect! Must also say what a fabulous masthead the blog now boasts (if that's the right term).
Hope all is well -- have the schools broken up yet for Easter? If so -- happy holidays!
Love to you all from a chilly windswept Birmingham! Terry x
Great pictures and videos, and terrific to see the Falla festival in action, albeit at one remove.
Sorry to learn that the ticketing experience for fitba' is pretty much similar to that for the opera. Still, after the great current British LHR Terminal 5 triumph, we might just be able to trump them come the international festival of drugs and cheating in 2012.
Greetings and very best wishes from sunny Hampshire where the birds are now into serious nesting.
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