Find part 1 of my Spain and Portugal trip here.
At this point I had ran out of film for my camera so enjoy some photos I captured on my iPhone.

It was a random coincidence that my tour happened to be in Valencia for the Fallas Festival, which is recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. I spent the bus ride over to Valencia googling everything I need to know about the festival and scouting out where and when I need to be to make the most of this experience.

The week-long festival is known for its loudness due to the large amounts of fireworks and firecrackers being shot off throughout the day and late into the night. Every neighbourhood displays their own ninot, a large, usually comical, handmade statue, to be entered into a competition (one for adults and one for children) after which all the losing ninots are burned.

After rushing into the town centre to catch the Mascletà, a daily explosion of gunpowder which left my ears ringing, I stopping at a market to pick up a Valencia orange and headed over to the Plaza de la Virgen to see the Ofrenda.

The Ofrenda de Flores is a very emotional event where participants will don traditional clothing and bring bouquets of flowers which will become part of a brilliant display filling the plaza and covering the wooden effigy of the virgin in an intricate design. Many of the participants will cry as they go to hand over the flowers because it is such an important event both culturally and religiously.
As I was watching the ceremony take place a woman suddenly pushed her way into the crowd of onlookers proudly shouting in Spanish, “it’s my daughter!” I gave up my spot so this woman could see her daughter offer the flowers and I watched her as she proudly took dozens of photos and shouted to her daughter “guapa” which means beautiful. Meanwhile, an old man saw that I was now further back in the crowd (and I’m quite short) so he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me right to the very front of the crowd so I had an even better view than before.

After getting checked into our hotel for the night, I wandered around the streets to try to find as many ninots as possible and to soak in the energy of the festival. Children and adults ran around with wooden boxes filled with firecrackers and set them off around every corner. For those who had ran out of firecrackers, there were long lines to buy more from the shops.

We spent some of the morning wandering the city and going inside the Valencia Cathedral to see the Holy Grail, but then it was time for bags to coach to make our way to Granada.

Part 3 coming soon!