Las Fallas

Back to Valencia! A trip that lasted less than 24 hours, eight of which were spent on the bus. Las Fallas, meaning "The Torches" in Latin is a crazy Spanish fiesta, The focus of which, is the creation and destruction of ninots, which are huge cardboard, wood, paper-machè and plaster statues. The statues are everywhere. There must have been hundreds of them all over the city.





Hurrah for matching bracelets!







"Mark, what do they do with all the statues?" Well friends, they set them all on fire! They begin to burn the smaller ones at about 10 o'clock, then move on to the larger ones.

This is the grandaddy of the ninots that burned in the fiesta. We staked out our spot to watch at about 10:30. It didn't start till about 1am but it was well worth the wait. It all began with some amazing fireworks then the actual ninot was set ablaze. The subsequent inferno was enough to melt your face off(almost).






Hot, hot, hot!

(Muchas Gracias to my father for letting me use several of his pictures)