Experiencing Valencia before it erupts

We really enjoyed being in Valencia in the final build-up to Fallas week. We were able to experience several Fallas-related activities and to enjoy the city before the more spectacular floats and bonfires bring in the crowds.

The 2pm daily (starting on March 1) firecracker display (the Mascleta) is definitely something to experience. While the noise of this display was certainly loud, we found the local interest in this event to be more of a highlight. The hordes of people congregating daily for ten minutes of loud bangs were an amazing sight.

The lower-key local events associated with Fallas were an unexpected highlight. We did not expect to find big pots of paella being cooked on street corners, or women and girls walking around in beautiful and elaborate traditional dresses.

Another unexpected highlight was the childrens’ parade ahead of the more-spectacular floats of the final Fallas week. We did not expect to see a procession while we were there, and the childrens’ parade was excellent. Although it appears that thousands of children take part, it was also clearly a family occasion – with fathers driving the tractors that pull the floats, mothers walking with very young children, and grandparents sitting in chairs along the route.

The Fallas museum provides an overview of the Fallas festivities. It should not be missed, particularly if you are not in Valencia for the final Fallas week. It is small and accessible, and we were able to see large models of the impressive papier-mache figures that go up in flames during Fallas week.

Valencia is trying to expand its tourist appeal beyond the final Fallas week. It certainly worked for us – experiencing the anticipation of the fiesta without having to share this experience with hordes of out-of-town visitors. This was the biggest highlight for us.

Quick Tips:

Do not visit Valencia in March if you do not like firecrackers. In addition to the "official" Mascleta, there is an almost constant banging of firecrackers being let off somewhere. It is quite amazing.

Do not be afraid to talk to people, but do not expect them to understand much English. We found that our pidgin Italian served us quite well and also helped us to make friends.

It is not necessary to fight the crowds to be at the front of the Mascleta audience. The street buildings channel the noise and it is very loud at the back as well.

If you are looking for lunch, choosing a restaurant before the end of the Mascleta (at about 2:10) will help you to find a free table. Many restaurants fill up soon after that.

The Fallas Museum has beautiful displays, but unfortunately no annotation in English. If this topic particularly interests you, it would be worth doing your research before you go. Like most of Valencia’s museums, the Fallas museum is closed on Mondays.

Best Way To Get Around:

Walking is the best way to experience Valencia before the Fallas. The Plaza del Ayuntaniento (where the Mascleta is held, and where we saw floats under construction) is in old Valencia, and this area is eminently walkable. Also, by walking around this area we also chanced across the paella being cooked in the street and the beautiful traditional dresses.

The Fallas Museum is a short distance (half-hour dawdle) from old Valencia. We walked there, but local cabs are easy to find and appear to be honest. We took a cab from the airport (EUR12) and found this quick and efficient. Valencia also has an excellent local bus system – tickets cost EUR1 and you can buy them from the driver.

We did not use Valencia’s metro. It has several stops and skirts the old town.

We were advised not to take the "airport train" to the airport. Apparently its airport stop is a considerable distance from the airport itself, and our incoming taxi experience had been a good one.

Having had our bones shaken by the Mascleta, we were ready to sit down somewhere quiet and take things slowly for a while. We headed down Calle Poeta Querol with the post-Mascleta crowd and followed some of them up a small side-street. They turned into a buzzing restaurant (with a queue inside) and we carried on around the block. Here we found Meson Elisa, and were drawn in by the excellent value promised by the menu posted outside.

Meson Elisa turned out to be exactly what we were looking for. It has only five or six tables, and a couple of them were empty when we arrived. We both chose from the "daily special" menu that had drawn us in. Tina began with the macaroni with ham and tomato sauce, while I went for the "Valencian" salad (mainly lettuce, olives, and tuna). Both were "honest" rather than memorable.

We followed this up with prawn tortillas. Mine was delicious, and unlike any tortilla I have had before. It was more like a quiche in thickness, was really fluffy, and the small prawns were soft and tasty.

We ended our meal with oranges from the fruit basket. They were appropriately sweet and juicy, and made a healthy change from the thick chocolate and creamy takeaways we had been enjoying during our strolling around town.

Most of our fellow-patrons ate their meals at a faster pace than we did. We enjoyed being unhurried, and were also distracted by the TV news programme that was dominated by Fallas events. It included a segment on the Mascleta, and we learned that the firecrackers had registered an "orange" 114 decibels on the meter. I can’t imagine how loud it has to be to warrant a "red".

Like most of our Valencia experiences, we found that English is not spoken at Meson Elisa. However friendly Elisa was also very patient, and we were able to communicate enough with our pidgin Italian. In general, we were surprised just how far we were able to get with a little Italian in Valencia. This was an unexpected bonus.

We enjoyed our meal at Meson Elisa. While it wasn’t as buzzing as its near neighbours, service was friendly, the food was good, and the meal was very good value (EUR19 for the two of us, including a beer and bottled water).

Tel: 96 352 5478

Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 2pm and 4:30 to 8:30pm, Sunday 10am to 3pm (EUR2 entry)

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 Fallas Museum is a twenty-minute stroll from the Valencia train station, and is also near to the spectacular new riverbed museum developments. Unlike its newer neighbours, it is small and cozy and definitely aimed at local interest. We arrived at the museum shortly after its 10 a.m. opening. Most of our fellow-visitors were noisy groups of schoolchildren, enjoying the somewhat grotesque, and sometimes humorous, exhibits.

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.

The model collection is complemented by an interesting exhibit of Fallas posters, paintings of past Fallas festival princesses, and a scale model of the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (from where the daily Mascleta firecrackers are launched). We ended our visit with a short film about the Fallas – with impressive scenes of the floats burning and of the fireworks being set off.

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.

We enjoyed our visit to the Fallas Museum. We were impressed by the skill and artistry behind the Fallas floats, but were sorry that we were unable to learn more about the history and traditions of the occasion. Will need to brush-up on our Spanish and then come back.

The pyrotechnic climax of Valencia’s Fallas festivities is the burning of the best large floats during the "Nit de Foc" on the night of March 18. This is the high-point of a spectacular week of float-burning, fireworks, and processions that starts on March 12 and finishes with a firework display on the night of March 19. Prior to that, starting on March 1, the daily 2pm Mascleta ritual of firecrackers and noise attracts thousands of people to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento on the edge of old Valencia.

Being in Valencia from March 5 (a Saturday) to March 8, we were able to experience the Mascleta from various distances and vantage points. The noise and smoke made for a memorable – and very loud – experience.

Our first inclination of how important the Mascleta is to Valencians came on Sunday afternoon. We were dawdling and people-watching on the square in front of the Basilica of the Virgen. We had been admiring the Sunday-best attire of the people coming out of church when we gradually realised that they were all heading the same way as they left church. Passing through the pedestrianised area in front of the cathedral, the next street had been blocked-off to traffic and there was a strong flow of people of all ages heading towards the square.

The next day, we were able to experience the firecracker display at relatively close quarters. At about 1:45 we dawdled along one of the blocked-off avenues to the edge of the waiting crowd. Office-workers were enjoying the sun on their balconies and the atmosphere was very relaxed. At 2pm exactly, a clock bell rang somewhere, there was a pregnant silence for a few seconds, and then the noise and smoke began. We could hear sounds like waves of thunder, and see streaks of smoke from exploding fireworks above the square. Gradually the noise become constant and very loud – our bodies shook with the vibrations and we couldn’t hear ourselves shout. A cloud of smoke sat over the square. Then, suddenly, all was quiet as the noise stopped for a moment, there was a brief reprise, and then it really was all over. The whole thing had lasted about ten minutes. Waiting city busses filled-up quickly, traffic policemen took away the barriers, and life returned to normal.

Experiencing the Mascleta was indeed memorable. By arriving earlier than 1:45, we could have got closer to the action but we were quite happy to be at a respectable distance. We would not recommend taking young children to this – unless they are Valencian and have loud-bang immunity in their genes. We saw plenty of people of all ages enjoying the noise, but it certainly is very loud.

The tourist highlight of the Valencia calendar is the Fallas week from March 12 to March 19. Being in town a week earlier, we were able to experience the lower-key anticipation of the pyrotechnics to come. It was very clear that Fallas means a lot to many of Valencia’s inhabitants, and is definitely not just a spectacular event for tourists and television. We enjoyed being in town before the main event, and before the numbers of extra people that it draws.

The first indications of oncoming Fallas were visible from the air. As our plane came into Valencia, we could see sporadic firework outbursts in the suburbs and outlying towns. As we came into town, the festive lights and the large "Fallas" display on the wall of the Corte Ingles department store were further indicators of things to come.

Heading into old Valencia from the train station, the Plaza del Ayuntamiento is where many of the Fallas festivities are held. On the Sunday morning (March 6) we could see the wooden skeletons of statues under construction. By the time we left on Tuesday, papier-mache clothing and boots had materialised behind the plastic protective covering and we could get some feel for the large scale of these things.

Later on, dawdling in the square in front of the Basilica of the Virgen, we saw some women and girls in beautiful brocaded traditional dresses walk past. Nobody seemed to be paying them much attention, and we were to see several more of them over the next few days. Later on, they offered us peanuts from a small plate they were passing around – we guessed that this was some tradition associated with Fallas. We also came across large pots of paella being cooked at street intersections, presumably another Fallas tradition.

On the Sunday of our visit, we were able to see part of the childrens’ parade. Hundreds of costumed children came past. We saw Alladin, Sinbad, and Ali Baba. There were storks carrying babies, characters from books (I think), and a variety of policemen, nurses, dancers, and soldiers. The floats were pulled by farm tractors, and we could see plenty of video-camera evidence of proud parents and also grandparents sitting in the chairs along the way. A couple of teenage brass-bands provided more noise, and the whole parade culminated with fireworks in the square. It felt like a very "local" affair, and is probably very different from the more-spectacular statues and floats of the final Fallas week. We enjoyed it very much.

All in all, there is much to be said for being in Valencia before the Fallas finale. While there is still plenty to interest visitors, it feels very much like a local event and we were glad to be there when we were.