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.