Las Fallas in Valencia
It was mid-day when we arrived in Valencia, Spain. We didn’t have reservations, but we were pretty confident that any of the 5 star hotels Valencia has would be able to accommodate us. We were right. We spent 3 days in Valencia and never did leave old town. There was plenty to do right there in the center of the city.
We didn’t realize that Valencia was preparing for it’s annual party called ‘Las Fallas.’ It’s a huge event, almost like Carnival for Rio or St. Patricks Day in Ireland. So, we were very lucky indeed to find a hotel room. As we were walking around, we noticed that all of the neighborhoods we past by were being decorated by the city with lights and there were plenty of giant floats being worked on. The floats are supposed to reflect moments from the previous year. The festival takes place from March 14 to the 19th, five whole days of parties and drinking and tons of fireworks. At the end of the festival, they light up all the floats, they set them on fire! The symbolism is leaving the old year behind and making room for the new year.
We weren’t there for the official festival, but there was plenty of pre-’Las Fallas’ activities happening all around, so we got plenty of the ‘party’ atmosphere without having to pay the primo hotel prices.
Later that afternoon, we walked through a lot of the streets and thoroughly enjoyed the decorations. We then took a tour through the Cathedral located in the center of the city. The Cathedral was really cool, it was a mixture of Neo-classical and Gothic architecture. Plus, they had a nice collection of paintings by Goya, what a nice surprise. The Cathedral has one of the larges gold processionals in the world and is the keeper of the Holy Grail. Apparently, the Vatican recognized a cup that Christ supposedly drank from at his last supper. I don’t really know if it is, but that really doesn’t matter, because the Holly Grail still bring in tons of tourist each year.
We were exhausted from our walking site seeing jaunt, so we headed back to our hotel and ate at the hotels restaurant, which was quite delicious and we went to bed.
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