La tragedia de la división

As a world, as nations, as regions and as cities, we are so tragically divided.

The mood of some of this post will inevitably reflect the tragedy of the DANA¹, for this has had an effect on Communidad Valenciana that may never be forgotten. This weather phenomenon struck several parts of Spain, but on October 29^th 2024, approximately one year’s worth of rain fell in the Valencia region in one day. An isolated area of low pressure at high levels was the cause (undoubtedly exacerbated by climate change) and it is one of the deadliest natural disasters in Spanish history. Enormous damage and loss of life was inflicted on a huge area in a very short time.

 

And so, ours was a visit that may never have happened. The DANA struck less than 3 weeks before our planned arrival in Valencia, and the situation in the region and city was initially unclear from the often non-specific news coverage². As the hours and days passed, it became clear that the city itself was unaffected (at least physically) and the general tone coming from both official and local sources was that visitors remained welcome.

 

But here is the first of our divisions: the anti-tourist lobby in Valencia is small but often vociferous. With their protest sharpened by the tragedy of the DANA, they pushed back against the visitor: “Leave us alone to recover, leave us to mourn, leave us to get back to normal”³.

In our minds, the “please visit” lobby won the day. We are not tourists after all: we are lucky enough to have a home in this incredible place. I had legal matters to attend to in connection with that, and meetings with letting agents and prospective tenants. As with every other visitor, it was very important to behave respectfully, but also to enjoy the city and continue pay for services, to travel, shop, eat, drink and contribute to an economy that would need every positive input that it can get in the coming years.

 

As advised, we had carried what we could to contribute to the huge recovery effort outside the city to the south and the west. Masks familiar to us from the COVID pandemic, disposable gloves, things that the Cruz Roja and volunteers needed to continue their staggering efforts. But as is so often the case, these needs had changed by the time we arrived… the Cruz Roja had run out of storage for such supplies, so financial contributions were now preferred.

 

I made such a contribution, but it never feels like enough. The masks and gloves were stored in the apartment. I couldn’t help feeling they would be needed one day.

 

Very soon after the DANA struck the populations immediately south and the west of the city itself, it was the public holiday of Todos los Santos. What gradually emerged on social media on that day was footage of thousands of Valencianos marching from the city, armed with brooms, mops, buckets, bottled water and anything else they could carry. They marched south from the city, across the great, wide, expanse of the redirected Rio Turia. They marched across the bridges that spanned the water and the highways that lined its route, and they marched into La Torre and any other areas they could reach.

It’s likely that the devastation that they witnessed made the mops and buckets in their hands seem useless, but they were there, and they offered up their help to those in great need. There can be no greater endorsement of the spirit of the Valencian people than this.

 

And despite this, it’s clear that another tragic division has emerged. As well as for the incredible street art that you can see in the city, walls are used for comment, complaint, protest and reaction. The volunteers are still helping in the stricken areas, yet the messages on the walls demonstrate a feeling of abandonment coming from the south and west. Now more than ever, there was division between the city and the Pobles del Sud and beyond.

 

It’s clear that warnings of the potential devastation to come were woefully inadequate, and the reaction of the regional government to the devastation was slow. This will no doubt be the source of some of these feelings of abandonment. This “them and us”.

Carlos Mazón, the President of Communidad Valenciana has taken much of the blame. He is a Partido Popular⁴ politician, and as such will court precious little popularity with the working populations of the stricken areas. Mazón is alleged to have been enjoying a 3-hour lunch in the city on the day of the DANA, eating and drinking as the devastation spread. This, along with the deadly delays in the arrival of help to some areas has resulted in huge protests against Mazón, and continued calls for his resignation. You can see the messages on the walls, and still hear random cries in the streets: “Mazón dimisión!!”. The anger still burns.

 

The city felt subdued as we went about our business. Appointments with an abogada and a notario to wrap up some legal matters, shopping for the apartment and ourselves, welcoming our letting agent and a potential tenant to view the apartment.

 

We walked the city as always, had great meals and saw familiar faces. The weather was beautiful⁵ despite a couple of windy days. These were not beach days (although some appeared to disagree) but a walk through the marina for a drink overlooking the water and along the Paseo Maritimo for paella was the usual delight.

The owner of a favourite restaurant in the old town welcomed us as ever. The restaurant had been quiet since the DANA, but he was positive of a return to normal. He had a forthright view on Mazón, and we were inclined to agree with it:

 

As he was out of limoncello, we discussed the situation over a couple of mistelas. Without hesitation, he described Mazón as a “fucking asshole!!”, so we got some idea of how he felt about that. He went on to say that yes, Mazón must resign, as many thousands were demanding… “but he must own his shit first”. He cannot run away. He must do the right thing and improve the situation at the very least.

 

Here is another division. Even within “the people v. Mazón” lobby there will be divided opinions. Our friend says he cannot run until he’s done the right thing. Others will demand an immediate resignation, others look for an even more extreme demise, as advertised on the walls of the Generalitat Valenciana.

Our last words to our friend were: “el año que viene, mas sonrisas”. More smiles next year.

 

The DANA will affect the communities outside the city itself, to the south and west, for many years to come. We saw daily news reports. A farmer had lost most of his stored potato crop worth several million euros. Househoilders and shop owners crying tears of fear and frustration. Locals and volunteers trying to sweep away the liquid mud, all the while risking serious illness from the sewer-infected filth. This type of struggle and loss will repeat over and over across the region. Hundreds are dead, and this will cut very deep across those communities.

 

I can’t escape the bitter irony of the precious Valencian soil. It’s what you sweep from your balcony and windowsills. It the dust that joins the leaves and city detritus and rises in flurries in the breezy streets. It lends the city its ethereal terracotta hue in the low winter light. It’s in the very air of Valencia because it surrounds Valencia and forms the great, fertile Huerta de Valencia⁶ that feeds people and communities and industry in the region, and much, much further afield.

 

The awful irony is that when a year’s worth of rain came down in 1 horrific day, this Valencian soil became the liquid mud that inundated homes and businesses. It destroyed hundreds of lives and livelihoods, washed thousands of cars into heaps on the streets, and turned vast areas of precious land into a fetid swamp.

 

The distress and anger was at such a peak in Paiporta⁷ when visited by the King, Queen and Prime Minister that this mud was literally thrown at them. They were forced to escape from a well-intentioned visit that turned very sour.

 

To date, 222 people have lost their lives in the Valencia region as a result of the DANA. Others have been lost in Castile-La Mancha and Andalucia.

With our business and visit concluded, we left with warm memories of the city once again, of excellent food and drink as ever, of faces new and old. But we left a subdued city. Valencia doesn’t lose its dignity, nor its poise. But the anger remains. The divisions remain.

 

 

 

 

This post is dedicated to all who have been lost as a result of the DANA 2024 in Communidad Valenciana and beyond, and to all those affected.

 

 

 

¹ To avoid any misunderstanding, I should make it clear that DANA is not one of the foolish names given to storms by some meteorological office or another. It’s the acronym that describes the weather phenomenon that caused this awful tragedy: Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos.

 

² Lazy news coverage will use the word Valencia without making the distinction between Valencia the city (Valencia Capital) and Valencia the region (Communidad Valenciana). This can be misleading, and caused many to believe that the floods had inundated the city itself, at least initially.

 

³ There is no normal, and that’s why the city and region are what they are. You might go so far as to say that such disasters make the city what it is, they shape its people and its outlook.

 

⁴ Broadly UK Conservative Party equivalent.

 

⁵ I don’t know if there’s a syndrome that describes “weather guilt”. I’m fully aware that it’s irrational, but I felt genuinely guilty about enjoying warm sunshine and light breezes so soon after that deluge that had destroyed so many lives. I was told by several people that it didn’t even rain in the city itself on that awful day.

 

⁶ The Huerta de Valencia (roughly translated as The Orchard) is a huge area of farmland and fruit, vegetables, grape and rice growing areas. It extends some 120km2 around the city of Valencia. La Huerta supplies the markets and restaurants of Valencia, but its abundant production of fruits and vegetables is exported to the rest of Spain and abroad.

 

7 It’s very likely (i.e. absolutely definite) that the political hard right in Spain saw an “opportunity” in this visit, and were involved in the unrest that arose in Paiporta on that ugly day. That said, there can be no doubt that local anger and frustration were a very real factor.

The hard right in Spain thrive on division, as do so many on the extremes of politics. We are so divided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

La verdad sobre la Costa del Sol: Part 2… more truths

I posted in July 2018 with my random musings about the Costa del Sol and it’s debatable integrity, based around a summer soak in sunshine and local colour.

“The truth about the Costa del Sol is that what endures,
what is worthwhile, is what is Spanish.”
David Hewson

 
For me, Hewson’s quote above remains rock-solid true. But there are things to add now… more truths.

 

And I make no apology for quoting Laurie Lee’s “As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning” once again, for it is relevant (and he couldn’t half write):

“The road to Malaga followed a beautiful but exhausted shore, seemingly forgotten by the world. I remember the names, San Pedro, Estepona, Marbella and Fuengirola. They were saltfish villages, thin ribbed, sea hating, cursing their place in the sun. At that time one could have bought the whole coast for a shilling. Not Emperors could buy it now” 

Back in early June, we had welcomed 2 tenants from the US (plus small canine tenant) to our Valencia apartment, to stay until November. So we needed a summer holiday venue. My previous experience of Estepona had been with my work back in April 2007, I remembered a town that had retained its elegance, despite its proximity to Marbella and Fuengirola to the east, as our Laurie mentions above. So Estepona was our choice.

 

With tedious predictability, our budget airline (the red one) landed us 2 hours late in Malaga, and with an hour on the road to Estepona still to come, hunger was the enemy. We scrambled directly to the nearby Puerto Deportivo de Estepona on arrival, and snacked at Café Bar Reinaldo as the marina began to grow quiet, late on a weekday evening.

Until the nearby Plaza de Toros emptied. Mercifully (if you’re a bull) the bullring was now being used for concerts and performances, and suddenly the marina was full of hundreds of people retrieving their cars, and the amusing struggles with ticket machines and exit barriers (that we enjoyed for the whole visit) added to the sudden bustle.

 

The next day dawned hot and breezy. I remembered Playa del Cristo to the west of the marina due to its proximity to the hotel we had used back in 2007. The walk from the marina was a little longer that I remembered, perhaps due to the wind creating clouds of thick dust in the large car park between marina and beach. A sign at the car park entrance prohibited caravans and motor homes. Predictably, the shore side of the car park was populated by around 30 caravans and motor homes.

 

Despite the wind, we enjoyed a first day in the sunshine on the beach, a chiringuito lunch (more on these fine establishments shortly) and shopped on the way back to our unremarkable holiday apartment so that the fridge could be filled.

 

To the east of the marina, towards the town new and old, lies Playa de la Rada. This huge beach stretches from the puerto pesquero and its fish market, right along the breadth of the town itself. It was along this beach that we strolled on day two, looking for a more authentic chiringuito experience… and so we happened across Chiringuito Tropical, the first that you’ll encounter in this direction.

 

So… chiringuitos. Our friend Wikipedia describes such establishments by suggesting that they’re not really established: “a small beach bar, selling mainly drinks and snacks, and sometimes meals or tapas, in a more or less provisional building, since a more permanent structure on the beach may be inviable”.

I love that chiringuitos can sometimes feel a little provisional, perhaps ramshackle, temporary… your chiringuito may even be a shack. It takes me back to one in Cyprus many years ago that was literally a shack, but produced a lunchtime brandy sour that was a game-changer.

 

It’s the makeshift nature of the chiringuito that makes the good ones so remarkable. The coast of the Malaga region specializes in very good chiringuitos, with very good fresh fish and seafood, invariably staffed by amazing people.

 

In an attractively ramshackle arrangement of buildings on a beach, there will be a kitchen, a bar, sometimes an indoor eating area, sometimes a decking eating area, sometimes tables right on the sand. Many then have sunbeds on the sand stretching towards the sea.

For us, these are some of the ingredients that make a summer holiday.

 

On first arrival at Chiringuito Tropical, we found sunbeds available from 11am. As soon as the chiringuito opened, you would pay a very friendly guy for your sunbeds and get on with your busy day of lying down a lot in the sunshine.

 

The sunbeds filled pretty quickly, and after a few days, you began to recognize and interact with the “regulars”:

Dutch family. Astonishingly adept at languages, flitting between Dutch, Spanish, English and French as required. Dad was resigned to the expensive tastes of his brood, constantly fishing into his back pocket for more euros to finance their prodigal beach lifestyles.

Spanish couple. Not sure if local to Estepona, but we got on speaking terms after stepping in to rescue a broken cigarette lighter crisis. They swam every day until the 11am “sunbed release” watershed.

Spanish family. Couple with young son of about 8 and very small son #2 who was unfeasibly cute, very good at the waving game, and also very good at demanding his family’s attention. Punched his Papa's arm remarkably hard for a small child when Papa was reading instead of paying attention to him.

 

60-something Spanish lady who was very particular about almost everything, but also very pleasant. Loved her time in the sunshine and enjoyed the sea. Retirement life goals.

 

Huge American guy in a basketball vest with a partner who never said a word. This was perhaps because he constantly talked about himself, and how he had played basketball with Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. Even if we had thought it was true, nobody cared.

3 Spanish ladies of a certain age (taking us back to my 2018 post again…) talking all at the same time… clearly determined to have a great day… and nobody can blame them for that. They were great fun, and cackled a lot after their first jug of sangria arrived. One fell asleep after a long lunch and snored loudly. Her mates found this hilarious, and therefore made a video. They then randomly played 30-second snippets of the same horrific euro-pop tune repeatedly, for what seemed like hours. This endeared them to us a little less, but they’d had a great day.

 

And various Spanish, Brits, Irish, French, Portugese, German, Scandi, Dutch, Eastern European and many and varied visitors. Some harmless, some demanding, some ignorant, some lovely.

 

And the lunchtimes. We wouldn’t miss those chaotic, hot, noisy, smoky, delicious, long lunchtimes in those vibrant, full-of-life chiringuitos for the world. Sunday especially is the Spanish family day out, and they dive into sardinas and boquerones fritos and calamares and fresh lenguado and dorada and paella and beers and sangria and they kiss and they laugh and they shout and they argue and we love it all.

 

We enjoy our own calmer version of the above, and we listen and we people-watch and we enjoy the service of the incredible staff, who work from 11am through a crazy long lunchtime service in 30º heat that can easily run through to 5pm… then they grab their own food and get ready for the evening.

 

We left Chiringuito Tropical on our last full day with heavy hearts and lots of genuine thanks. We had spent almost every day of our 2 weeks with the 3 generations of the family that run that place, and they had made our holiday.

 

Just as an aside, we had taken to enjoying a morning coffee close to Chiringuito Tropical before their 11am opening. Our venue of choice for coffee soon became the oddly named El Amanacer de Paco* on Calle San Roque. This was partly because of the great coffee, but also because we were often served by a lovely guy who wasn’t Paco, but bore more than a passing resemblance to Tattoo from Fantasy Island, the awful/great Saturday night TV offering from the 1970/80s**. “Tattoo” was such a nice guy, bustling around the tables, sharing the challenges of his busy life with a grin and a shrug. Paco himself was a tall, gentle guy with a more understated manner. Rather disappointingly, he bore no resemblance whatsoever to Ricardo Montalbán, so the 1970s Saturday night TV analogy was never quite complete.

 

And so to Estepona itself. In Estepona I felt closer to Valencia that I had ever felt in the other Costa del Sol resorts that we’d visited before… Marbella, La Cala de Mijas, Fuengirola.

Estepona is a fairly large town, and feels like it’s been a fairly large town for some time.

 

We knew La Cala de Mijas had been a tiny fishing village around which a resort grew at an alarming rate. In our first few years of holidaying there, we found that the pace of change from village to resort was reasonable, but this changed. The old original cafés close to El Torreon in the beachside heart of the resort lost their Spanish character. Some became places where you couldn’t sit and talk with a coffee or caña… the table couldn’t be yours unless you ordered food. Some guy from a TV show about Essex bought a restaurant there, and advertised it as being in Marbella. It isn't. The supermarket big brands moved in, as did Irish bars and kebab shops, and places where you could get a Sunday Roast or an English Breakfast.

 

Beyond the coast road, the building of more and more housing moved on at a frantic pace (and still does) and the whole thing will just snowball.

 

But the feeling in Estepona is not the same. Yes, the town continues to grow as people from all places move in to live and work and retire, but you don’t feel that it will ever be swallowed like La Cala has been. Estepona was there before all of these people, and I think Estepona will remain.

I think the word is established.

 

We walked to the old town from our apartment close to the marina. Up a gentle hill from the Rotonda de la Barca, you very quickly arrive at the start of a traffic-free walkway that strolls you past a tastefully redeveloped residential area, all the way to the pretty (if very busy) old town. I remembered back to 2007 when some of this smart, floral, water-featured, cool walkway was a grubby, noisy, car-filled seafront road. What a difference.

 

For all of our 2^nd week, along this cool walkway, there was the Jamon Festival Estepona 2024. For the uninitiated, jamon in Spain is a VERY BIG DEAL. It’s hard to think of a UK equivalent to the impact, importance, history, artistry, craft and place in society that jamon has in Spain.

 

The best jamon is revered like the finest wines, and that is reflected in the cost. This festival featured an impressive range of jamon for sale, competitions for the best ham carver (an art within an art) and of course the finest ham at the end of the week. With sellers of cheeses and beer, and bread and dulces, the many stalls leading up to the great ferris wheel at the start of the old town were a delight.

 

We ate in the old town on a few evenings. One very nice mesón had a very likeable host and tables a little way down the street close to the ancient castle wall of Castillo de San Luis... and the food was amazing. Some old town restaurants were too turistic, but the occasional chiringuito tempted us back for an evening meal when we could see that fresh fish still being barbecued over wood.

 

On our way home, families played giant chess at midnight on the traffic-free paseo. The queue for the ferris wheel didn’t seem to diminish, and the jamon carvers didn’t slow down.

 

And just a word for the gulls. Gulls justifiably get a terribly bad press in many places. They scavenge and steal food and are a nuisance and a genuine threat to people in many places across the UK.

There are a lot of gulls in Estepona, but they didn’t appear to be a problem for anyone. They largely remained around the puerto pesquero, and that end of the beach. They fly in large flocks in the mornings and evenings, only once making themselves scarce when a gang of black kites moved in from the African coast one evening***.

 

The gulls appeared to have everything they needed from the puerto and the fish market, and to some degree they sum up Estepona as a place. Their part in the established order of things seemed clear, and they don’t push the boundaries. There are thousands of expats in Estepona also, but they haven’t turned it into any kind of expat enclave. There were a lot of visitors of all nationalities, but they were largely unable to have a negative influence on such an established town that clearly has solid foundations.

 

Nice place, Estepona. It’s something of a comfort to think that it’s likely to remain so.

 

 

 

 

*One of the possible translations is "The Dawn of Paco". Maybe he had some kind of epiphany that inspired him to open a café and employ Tattoo from Fantasy Island. It's hard to know where the truth lies. My Spanish wasn't good enough to ask him, and it's probably best left to the imagination.

** Many of my very few readers wil probably need to google this due to age, and then maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about. I hope.

*** I'm no Bill Oddie (again, please google if required) but apparently it's not unusual for Black Kites to cross the Straits in groups.

 

 

Fallas is everything…

Fallas is everything that Valencia is, and Valencia is everything that Fallas is.

It’s noisy, brash, busy, colourful, joyous and emotional. It’s surprising, accessible, inclusive, gregarious and diverse. It’s traditional, historic, culturally important and of great regional and national significance.

It’s fireworks and fire. It’s madness, drinking, dancing and street food. It’s artistry, music, song and satire. It’s religion, respect and remembrance alongside a cultural riot.

 

And finally, FINALLY, we’ve been lucky enough to experience it.

 

It’s a little over 8 years since we bought the Valencia apartment, and several more years since my first visit to the city. Over all those years, we’ve managed by one means or another, to miss Valencia’s spectacular weeks-long lead up to Día del Padre (St. Joseph’s day) on 19^th March.

 

Las Fallas de Valencia (Falles in Valenciano) is an annual celebration commemorating St. Joseph. The main days of celebration are 15^th-19^th March, but many features of Fallas will run from late February¹. The festival is recognised by UNESCO on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

But enough Wikipedia. Here’s a look at our experience, and the most memorable parts of our sensory overload:

 

FIREWORKS:

 

Fireworks have to top this list. Fireworks are very much a Valencian thing most of the time, but it’s x1000 for Fallas. They are the one ubiquitous feature of Fallas that you couldn’t fail to be aware of.

From the tiny petardos that little kids love to throw in the street to the huge explosives in the daily mascletà that bounce your internal organs, firecrackers and fireworks are everywhere in Fallas. Literally 24/7. 

 

Parents buy kids wooden boxes full of firecrackers and fireworks, and the delighted kids decorate the boxes with their names. Those same parents look on lovingly (and actively encourage) as their pequeños turn to explosives for their entertainment for a few deafening Fallas days. Every street is alive with explosions, and littered with the debris of thousands of firecrackers. The bigger the kid, the bigger the noise.

 

But none can compete with the Mascletà. Every day at 2pm, from 1^st-19^th March, this daytime firework display attracts thousands of spectators to Plaza Ayuntamiento. 

 

On the 18^th, there were huge crowds, but we managed to get within around 100 metres of the fenced-off mascletà area in front of the town hall. The crowds grew and grew, and so with 20 minutes to go we were all crammed in, with no choice but to wait it out in the sunshine.

 

The creu roja attended to several people in the crush. Guests of the Ayuntamiento showed ID to the police and walked down to the town hall. The attending Falleras (more on these later) walked towards us in pairs up Calle de la Sangre and turned neatly to enter the back of the town hall and take up their privileged position on the balcony. The best seat in the city.

 

The anticipation grew, police helicopters circled, and a loud airborne explosion gave the 10 minute warning to the crowd’s delight… another with 5 minutes to go. The clock edged towards 2pm, and we stared intently past the Ayuntamiento and towards the spectacular Edificio de Correos as the crowd whistled its impatience, waiting for the assault on our senses.

 

It is not possible to explain how incredible a good mascletà is to anyone who hasn’t had the experience, particularly those in countries like the the UK who are understandably unable to grasp the concept of a daytime firework display. At 2pm², the Fallera Mayor on the town hall balcony will announce (in Valenciano of course): “Senyor pirotècnic, pot començar la mascletà!” and this amazing spectacle rumbles into life. The skill of the pirotècnic (and the good ones are genuine heroes) is immediately obvious, as the noise and colour build, the lights of fireworks dance and collide, smoke changes through a spectrum of colours and billows over the thousands of spectators.

Explosive noise takes over as the display develops, increasing in intensity until you can feel the physical force of it. You don’t believe that this can get any louder or more intense… this must be the big finish… until it reaches another level. The crowd reaction is the same as that most amazing gig you ever saw… people scream, arms raised, fingers pointing skywards as if to reach out to the circling drones and police helicopters.

 

The final shattering explosion echoes around the soaring buildings of Plaza Ayuntamiento³, and even the screams of the thousands fail to fill the void that it leaves. This is one of those occasions where nobody moves for a little while. Open-mouthed, looking at strangers, processing the amazing assault on the senses.

 

NOISE:

 

All of which brings me on nicely to noise. Valencia is a noisy city all of the time. Valencianos can be noisy most of the time, although this rarely comes across as boorish or annoying, more as excited, engaging, energetic. During Fallas, this takes on new meaning. Those who dislike Fallas⁴ will leave the city for the duration. This leaves only a) excited Valencians and b) excited visitors. Now every aspect of your Fallas life will be accompanied by these fellow celebrants and their drinking, eating, screaming, laughing, crying, fire-cracker throwing cacophony.

Temporary street bars on every corner (not enough cafés, bars and shops for all these thousands) give the green light to all-day street drinking… unusual in Valencia. Street stalls sell buñuelos de calabaza and churros con chocolate as fast as they can be made. It’s a heady mix, and a noisy one. Your average fire-cracker gets louder as the Fallas climax approaches. Our relatively quiet barrio is no exception, and the local casal faller (and all the others) extends their premises via a large marquee and a stage on closed streets, so that all the fire-crackers can be accompanied by music, singers, live bands and speeches on the final night. They’ll have their own small mascletà. A live band until 4am on one late-Fallas evening passed without comment or complaint, even with a large proportion of older residents in the surrounding apartment buildings.

 

Then there’s the despertà. You’re going to get a firecracker and marching band wake-up call at 8am. Don’t say you haven’t been warned. Yes, I know the band didn’t finish until 4am. This is Fallas, right?

 

An incredible castillo de fuegos begins at midnight on every evening of the main celebration. A night-time firework display more familiar to many of us, although executed with such spectacular skill to rival any in the world. In the aftermath of this, smaller local displays will go on through the night.

 

If you are looking for sound, extended sleep across mid-March for any reason, Valencia is not the place to be.

 

 

FALLES (AND NINOTS):

 

Every neighbourhood in Valencia (almost every street if truth be told) has a Casal Faller. This is much more than just the name of the place where they meet, but an organized, close, work hard/play hard community group who meet, eat, drink and fundraise all year, dedicated to the production of their Falles.

 

With 2 such organisations very close to the apartment, we were a little torn over where to place our allegiance, albeit a passive allegiance at the moment. It soon became evident that some of our close neighbours were active in Falla Camino Barcelona⁵. One neighbour unexpectedly burst into the lift one day in full fallera outfit, the wide skirts filling the small lift with their finery. Having had one or two rather intimidating encounters with this particular vecina (usually in normal clothes with small dog) we decided Falla Camino Barcelona was deserving of our allegiance for fear of incurring her wrath. I suspect her wrath is not a wrath to be incurred under any circumstances.

 

The falles are the enormously impressive constructions that each casal faller works all year to produce with the help of specialised artists. There are around 400 city-wide, each accompanied by falles infantils, or a smaller children's version. The individual ninots are the figures which make up the whole construction, and the falles are often huge, spectacular works of art.

 

For fear of delivering a history lesson, I’ll keep the evolution brief. In the dark winter days of the past, carpenters would fix up contraptions for mounting candles to allow them to work. When the lighter days of spring arrived, these contraptions would be ritually burnt. As these contraptions became more elaborate and were decorated, the process evolved into the building of the astonishing falles that we see today. They are used as platforms for satire and social and political comment, satisfying the Valencian love of poking fun at people in power and the situations they might create.

 

We walked past Estació del Nord and down Carrer de Bailèn one day, passing stall after stall selling the pañuelos that celebrants wear around their necks... churros, buñuelos, hats, trinkets, toys. There are huge crowds, chinese and south american restaurants and grocers. 

As we walked, newly arrived visitors from the station were lifted 2-3 inches off the ground by a volley of firecrackers, along with their wheely suitcases. 

 

We turned the corner, crossed a city block or two, and stood in front of Falla Convent de Jerusalem. This is a vibrant, multi-cultural part of town with a great atmosphere during the festival, and this falla has been a regular winner across the years. This year’s edition was an incredible, towering work of art. A little depiction of Carles Puigdemont at the base of the falla stood out despite its deliberately tiny stature. A little stab at his Catalan separatist movement, with Puigdemont depicted as a Roman soldier, his Catalan flag as his shield.

 

Then on the evening of 19^th March, they burn them all⁶.

 

To the casual observer, the burning of the falles on 19^th March seems like an act of criminal damage. In reality, it’s the climax of months of preparation and days of celebration. It’s emotional, but not sad. It’s a great honour for the casal faller and everyone who has worked so hard to make the whole thing happen.

 

We waited dutifully outside Bar Caramel, at the chilly, breezy corner of Avenida Portugal and Avenida Constitución on the evening of the 19^th. 8pm is the designated hour for the burning of the falles infantils, the start of La Cremà.

Despite a gathering local crowd, 8pm came and went. Bar Caramel was doing a roaring trade in tins of Mahou, but there was little sign of activity around the falla infantil. Eventually, a string of firecrackers was attached to a nearby tree. Everyone from the casal faller had their photos taken in front of the falla infantil. A flammable liquid was added in various places, adjustments were made, and everything seemed in readiness. But it wasn’t. Yet. Patience, Inglés.

 

Finally, at an acceptably late 8.40pm, the first firecracker on the string leading from the nearby tree was lit. Quickly, one by one, the small explosions neared the falla infantil, the firecrackers wrapped around it went off, and the whole thing went up quickly. Fireworks placed inside the falla shot into the air⁷, a huge cloud of smoke pushed out towards the crowd, and everyone was delighted with the spectacle. La Cremà for Falla Camino Barcelona was underway, with the much larger falla due to meet it’s explosive fate at 10pm, along with all of the others across the city.

 

 

LAS FALLERAS:

 

So here are the stars of the show. The spirit of Falles. Your carnival queens x 1000. Each casal faller will elect its Fallera (and Fallera Infantil) to represent it to the city and the celebration. This is a huge honour. Falleras then go on to a selection process for wider representation, and ultimately the Fallera Mayor (along with her Corte de Honor) and Fallera Mayor Infantil will be selected to represent all the other Falleras, and to lead the city’s celebrations and undertake many civic duties. There is a great deal of cultural and emotional significance attached to this.

 

Falleras appear everywhere during Falles, performing their ceremonial duties and walking, dancing and smiling their way through their ofrenda, a long procession culminating in a gift of flowers to La Virgen. The construction of an enormous statue of La Virgen covered in flowers is the result, and Plaza de la Virgen is complete with this enormous idol and the extraordinary floral offerings of every casal faller around the Neptune fountain on the 19^th.

The traditional outfit of the Fallera is unmistakable. With hair styled styled in an elaborate and specific way, partly covered with a lace mantilla falling to the astonishingly elaborate silk dresses. The outfit is based on 18^th and 19^th century clothing worn by the huertanos working in the fields and orchards of Valencia.

 

The dress itself is iconic, and Falleras and their families prize this highly, along with the honour of representing the casal faller. The embroidery and finishing are extraordinary, and very costly. Falleras and their families will make significant sacrifices to ensure they have the very best they can afford. The joy and pride with which they are worn is evident in the ofrenda processions, Falleras⁸ dancing and laughing with the young and old alongside, marching bands keeping everyone smiling.

Con mucho encanto, as they say in these parts.

 

With fireworks, noise, the casal faller, falles and Las Falleras now established as the very building blocks of this unique festival, we went about living in and around it for a few days.

 

Having landed on 16^th March, we had almost 4 days until the last minutes of the 19^th saw the fiery end for 2024. You eat when you get the chance in Falles, as the city is packed as if to burst. A waiter in Plaza del Mercado brought a hastily-ordered meal in the shadow of the great falla, and he seemed fit to drop. Falleras walked past in regular clothes, given away by their elaborately styled hair. People passed by laughing and shouting, embracing, holding beers or agua de Valencia in plastic glasses.

 

Walking down to Plaza Ayuntamiento for the first time, a super-realistic falla took the form of several figures scaling the fence surrounding the mascletà area, standing out on top of the fence as a stark commentary on the migrant situation.

 

The Ayuntamiento have their own Falla outside the town hall. 2 enormous white doves touch beaks as they tower above the thousands of observers in the square, the falla infantil was (in an unusual show of humorous flippancy for the town hall) a yellow rubber duck sitting below.

Almost every street had its falla, with some local celebrations having their own theme. We ran into a well-choreographed Moors and Christians-themed procession in Calle Visitación in our own district, seeming to be a theme specific to the area.

 

With the never-ending backdrop of noise from kids’ firecrackers, building to huge bangs from large fireworks deliberately placed in narrow streets for maximum effect, we explored the city and the falles, saw numerous, charming, joyous ofrenda processions with hundreds of Falleras, along with the tiniest of children in traditional dress and their marching bands. It’s clear that everyone was aware of the cultural significance of what they were taking part in here, and there was respect for this, but no solemnity⁹. Joy was the word that constantly came to mind, and the joy made the scenes emotional.

 

We got coffee and found our place for a floral ofrenda to Sant Josep (El Patriarca, the guy for whom this is all done) on the bridge of that name close to our barrio on the morning of the 19^th. A group of Falleras placed flowers at the foot of the statue and a proud speech was made in Valenciano by an official of the local casal faller. Tears of regional pride were shed by the Falleras at the singing of the Valencian anthem. It’s hard to overstate the pride that there people take in being Valenciano… and also Spanish.

We saw as many falles as we could, took in as much as we could, and made our way back to our barrio in time for our own La Cremà already described. The very Spanish lateness of this, plus fitting in food before the essential Plaza Ayuntamiento climax of the whole festival meant that we sadly missed the burning of any of the main falles at 10am¹⁰.

 

We had eaten close to Plaza Ayuntamiento, so we pushed our way into the square and took up a position not too far from the huge fountain and close to Beher, doing a frantic trade in bocadillos de jamon. We were ready for the final acts of Falles, as people pushed towards Beher, towards the fountain, towards the soaring doves, through non-existent gaps in the crowd, searching for non-existent spaces and better views. You had no real choice but to take the crowd as part of the experience and settle for where you were. What was about to happen was mostly in the sky anyway.

 

As is the tradition, an explosive 10-minute and 5-minute warning turned heads towards the town hall clock.

 

Slightly after 11pm, the fireworks started above the mascletà area, great plumes of colour in the night sky. The 2 great doves looked on to the right, in front of the town hall. Illuminated now, but spared from the flames for the moment.

 

We were much closer to this castillo de fuegos than we had been for the regular ones in previous days. Again, the intensity built, the noise built, the colours built… and then suddenly the enormous dove on the left was alight, a huge plume of black smoke climbing. The fireworks reached another light-and-sound climax, the crowd tried to compete, and the light from the huge burning doves took over.

 

La Cremà and Las Falles 2024 was complete. As the doves burned brightly, the crowd stood unmoving, as they had after the mascletà. Staring at the huge burning doves, transfixed… processing what had just happened.

 

Eventually we moved back towards Plaza Reina. The falla there was reduced to burning embers, but I had the sense that there was nothing really sad about these falles reduced to smoking ruins. Their fate was meant to be, it was significant, it was renewal.

 

By the time we got back to our barrio, the cleaning teams were already out. The falla close to the tramlines at Calle Actor Mora was gone, the site hosed down. The real estate office on that corner would open tomorrow. It was the same for the sites where the falles closer to the apartment had stood. The alien visitor falling to earth at this point might be entirely ignorant of anything having occurred, such is the effectiveness of the city-wide clean-up operation.

After a night of much-needed sleep, we headed for Las Arenas and the customary paella. The waiter seemed refreshed, energetic. Possibly for the very same reason as we were. He remembered us from several previous visits, and having established the Va bien? Todo bien? greetings, we enjoyed the usual satisfying paella experience. 

 

On another evening, an old favourite host plied us with his irresistible Spanish-italian food delights and his seemingly endless limoncello. We shopped for things that the apartment needed (and didn’t need) and we enjoyed cold beer and good food in the comfortable spring sunshine.

 

We used the new Linea 10 of Metrovalencia for the first time, visited the City of Arts & Sciences (because you must) the Falles museum, Mercado Central and Mercado Colon. We ate amazing steak in Foc i Fum in Barrio del Carmen. The weather was perfect, and we smelled the orange blossom in every street.

Our pseudo-intimidating vecina joined me in the lift again one evening as I went to the mercadona. She was wearing normal clothes, had her little dog with her, and her mate with no teeth.

 

But we missed the marching bands, and the Falleras, and firecrackers in the street, and the people from the casal faller round the corner… pride and excitement etched all over their faces, as well as their sleep deprivation.

 

Everything was back to normal, but the enchanting thing is that Valencia has no normal.

 

 

1 The start of Fallas was delayed in 2024 out of respect for the victims of the apartment block fires in the Campanar district in February.

 

2 It has been said that the only thing that starts on time in Spain is the bullfight. To that very short list, you can add the Mascletà.

 

3 It was reported that the power of the Mascletà on the final day of Fallas shattered windows around Plaza Ayuntamiento.

 

4 I get this. If you genuinely can't stand Fallas, or you have a good reason for being unable to live with it, you may only be able to avoid it by leaving the city for the duration. It's not a thing that can just be ignored.

5 Falla Camino Barcelona is on Avenida Portugal, literally around the corner from our apartment building. The other casal faller is Falla Actor Mora on Calle Sarrion. Nothing to choose between them in terms of distance from our front door.

6 Mercifully, this is not strictly true. Ninots from the Falles judged to be the best are saved from the flames every year, and installed in the Fallas Museum.

7 So here's the thing, right. All of the fireworks placed inside the falla went straight up into the night sky. The crowd were no more than 4-5 metres away from this thing, and any horizontal projectile would have meant disaster. I'm going to attribute this avoidance of multiple injuries to great skill and planning. Not just good fortune.

8 There are Falleros (i.e male celebrants) also in traditional dress. But it's clear that they're a support act to the Falleras.

9 For great solemnity and austerity in your processions, head for Semana Santa de Malaga next Easter. While impressive and emotional, it is solemn and austere. Your average Fallera in her Falles ofrenda procession could barely resist the temptation to skip and giggle just a little bit.

10 This was a rookie error to be honest. So we have a grand excuse to go back and see it all again. I think you need to see Falles several times anyway, there's no way you can take it all in on one visit

 

 

I want to dedicate this post to 2 groups of people:

 

Those who were lost, and are left suffering, as a result of the horrific February 2024 apartment fires in the Campanar district of Valencia city. Descanso en paz 😔.

 

Those around the world for whom an explosion does not mean a celebration, but threatens the lives of themselves and their families 😔.

 

 

I apologise for the confusing mixture of Castellano and Valenciano in my references in the text. Some references demand the use of one or the other.