On Friday night, after a day full of bad weather and a month full of noise, Fallas 2010 finally came to its fiery end at la Cremà. The destruction of Almirante Cadarso’s Fat Cat towering monument structure with its huge paper machè ladies smoking cigarettes and tightly packed residential neighborhood made for a dramatic display.
There’s no more incredible end to a city festival than the Cremà. The burning embers, raging fire, thick black smoke and gigantic structures crashing to the ground in flames make for a terrifying and unique experience.
I’ve often tried to explain La Cremà to friends who’ve never seen it, but it’s impossible. There aren’t words which can accurately convey the insanity of it all. You tell people it’s crazy, and can see what they’re thinking: “Yeah, I’m sure it’s very crazy. But crazy within reason”. No! You aren’t understanding! It’s really completely crazy! Such a thing shouldn’t be legal! The burning of these gigantic 3 story monuments in a densely packed neighborhood, with thousands of onlookers mere meters away, is a crazy thing and a terrible idea.
Over 700 constructions around the city are burnt within a few hours of each other, which makes you think that a tragedy is just a matter of time. But, there are experienced firefighters on hand, with a long history free of major accidents: a fact which is comforting but doesn’t completely erase the terror of La Cremà — the perfect end to Las Fallas, surely one of the world’s most unique and crazy events.
This is the final event of Fallas, but we’re going to be posting things in reverse order… so, stay tuned for photos and videos of the Cabalgata del Fuego, the final mascletàs, Nit de Foc, the monuments and more. We took literally thousands of pictures, so it’s taken awhile to get through them.
One comment (but don’t tell this to much people, hehe!), all fallas have “scheduled firing time”, Almirall Cadarso always burn at 1AM+ (sometimes at 2AM)), Regne Valencia around 00:15, Prol Alamaeda-Av. Francia around 2-2:30AM… Cuba always burns around 0:10, and Sueca at 00:40 (staying on the middle of both fallas, in Literato Azorin street is amazing!)
Convento burns late too, except this year (they had to burn the falla at 00:30+- because they won)
So, if you like to see lots of fires, you can arrange your “burn tour”, the samall castillos is a great alert so you can run to reach the next falla burn. In Russafa (Cuba and Sueca, or Cadiz and then Cuba and Sueca), in l’Eixample (Regne, then some fallas in Joaquin Costa, finally Almirall Cadarso)… watch the “castillo” in Pl Ajuntament (from “Sang-San Vicente” street cross, in weekends is the best position if you don’t want to wait for hours)… or you can try… another crazy tour inside El Carmen, where some firefighter brigades go from one falla to another in a small white van, you can see: 00 la Merced, ?? Calabazas-En Gall, 01 Mercat Central, 01:30 Corregería, 02 Lope de Vega, 02:45 Dr. Collado. At the last fallas, you can see many people trying to “provoke” (in a funny way) firefighters… so finally they throw some water on them.. if you are not fast enough, you’ll get wet, very wet! At 3:30AM, you can see lots of wet people cheering firefighters and holding some of them on their shoulders.
But remember… don’t tell this to too many people! It’s a secret! 😉
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