Hola Valencia’s Top Five: Festivals
Written by mpowell
Well, I bet you’ve already guessed one of the festivals on our list! Sorry, Assumption Day, it’s not you. Here are the five festivals we loved the most during our time in this party-loving city!
Fallas is the Valencian festival, for an entire week turning the city into a exploding, singing, marching, crying, drinking madhouse. We love it. If you visit Valencia during Fallas, you will never, ever forget it.
Not really a traditional festival in the sense of the others on this list, but a great time regardless. The annual wine festival in the Turia seems to grow in popularity every year and, why not? With an incredible selection of cheeses, sausages and wines, and a great atmosphere which seems to buzz with the joy of spring, this is an event which no one should skip. Unless you’re one of those teetotaling losers.
Heaven on Earth? The Wine Festival
Possibly even crazier than Fallas is the celebration of Our Lady of the Forsaken — Valencia’s patron saint. The Sunday morning parade is the shortest, most intense religious freak-out I’ve ever seen.
In May, Valencia’s second most important festival gets underway, with bizarre parades, towering dancing figures and la moma — the lady dressed in white. It’s all tied to religion, of course, but what a giant-headed dancing Moor has to do with the body of Christ is anyone’s guess.
Get out your Valencian flags and head down to the Ayuntamiento, where the city will be celebrating itself in a grand fashion. This is the most nationalistic of Valencia’s holidays, and there’s often trouble as black-clad (and perhaps slightly fascist) Spanish nationalists come up against Valencian separatists. A good time!
Separatist Shenanigans at the Lowering of the Senyera
Valencia
21°
Learning to Tolerate the Art of Slow Walking | For 91 Days wrote,
[...] – Hola Valencia’s Top Five: Festivals [...]
Link | September 2nd, 2010 at 9:04 am
Pappy Powell wrote,
I understand that what makes a festival really great is the specific view and sobriety level of the participant. But, how the hell could you not include (as a strong #2) the 3 day fest in Alcoy ? Just the multi-strawed bucket of Moorish brew was worth a blue ribbon. And, the show-off parade leaders….oh my gosh !!
Link | September 2nd, 2010 at 12:31 pm