Written by Henry
Last week was Las Fallas in Valencia. Las Fallas is a festival that happens in Valencia every March. The best days of Las Fallas are March 15 to 18.
Las Fallas is celebrated to honor Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, and to mark the end of winter and the beginning of spring. As part of Las Fallas, they build lots of statues that are called Fallas, and are made of up many Ninots. On the last night of Las Fallas, they burn all of the statues except for two Ninots. Each year, the public votes on two Ninots to be saved from the burning, aka fire. We went to the museum to vote on our favorite Ninot. They were all really cool but my favorite one was an Egyptian pharaoh. But that one did not get saved.
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There are normally 700-800 Fallas statues throughout Valencia and they are usually 30-40 feet tall. But the biggest one is 98 feet tall in Plaza de Ayuntamiento. The statues are made of wood, cardboard and paper mache. We walked around to see a lot of the Fallas this year. My favorite statue was the Gladiator that we found near our neighborhood.
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My mom really liked to see the falleras, which are girls that wear 50-60 pound dresses and they are pretty. The falleras bring a flower offering to Our Lady of the Forsaken and they make a large flower sculpture.
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Fireworks are also a really big part of Las Fallas. It seemed like every time we went to the playground to play this past week, we saw lots of people shooting off fireworks. And we even got to do a few ourselves. My favorite fireworks to shoot were the wands and I liked watching the firework show in the Plaza.
On the last night of Las Fallas, they burn all of the statues except the two that were voted to be saved. We got to watch a small statue burn. They lit a firework fuse that made a bunch of colorful explosions in the statue to make it catch on fire. And I saw one of the statues' ears catch on fire! Then they shoot off big fireworks to celebrate.
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Las Fallas was a fun week and I think it would be cool to be back in Valencia for Las Fallas again.
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