HUGE amounts of both time and money are put into the creation of impressive floats, ninots, which are paraded through the streets, exhibited, and finally burnt on the bonfires, stuffed with fireworks.

However, since the mid-1930s, there has been a people’s choice of the very best overall and in the children’s section. Only the ninots chosen are preserved from the flames and exhibited in this museum with a 1€ entry. Sadly, they don’t follow the general policy of permitting photography without flash and permit none at all.

Much is lost on us foreigners, who will not usually understand the lampoonery of politicians and other well-known citizens, but you don’t need any particular knowledge to appreciate the skill and artistry involved.

Websites with pictures aren’t easy to find, but the first six on http://community.webshots.com/album/11062116KeUHYoCMSF are very good.

Tel: 96 352 5478

Having seen the Fallas floats under construction, admired the beautiful dresses of the Fallas "princesses", felt the noise of the Fallas fireworks, and eaten the Fallas peanuts – we were ready to learn more about what the Fallas means for Valencia. Also, not being in Valencia for the final week of the festivities (March 12 to March 19), the Fallas Museum is where we went to see more of what happens during the climax of that final week.

The bulk of the museum is taken up with smaller (ie.life-size) models of the much-larger float decorations that go up in flames during the final week of the Fallas festivities. These models are arranged chronologically, from around the 1920s to the present. The skill and effort behind their construction is impressive – they look like warts-and-all Disneyland characters – especially given that most of them are destined to be burned during the Fallas festivities. We recognised a couple of movie characters (Indiana Jones, Charlie Chaplin) among the array of models.

Unfortunately, the detailed annotation accompanying the exhibits is only in Spanish. This was a big disappointment, especially as our interest had been piqued by panel headlines such as "Fallas during the Civil War". We knew that Valencia had been a Republican stronghold during the Spanish Civil War, and wondered if some of what we were seeing was satire of the Franco government that followed the war.