Legend of the Fall(as) Part Two

Though we spent the majority of the time falla hunting and trying not to get deaf, we also managed to catch Flower Offering to Virgen de los Desamparados. This is held over 2 days and during the 2 days, the men and women dress up in their traditional dress, accompanied by their children (also dressed up in traditional wear) and parade through the city before finally converging on the Plaza de la Virgin to hand over flowers which will be affixed to the Virgin.

A robe of red, white and pink flowers carefully arranged

Lots of people gathering to in squares enjoying the festivities

Felt like the whole city was parting all week and had very festive feel to it all. Some of the processions have bands accompanying them and they will sometimes start dancing on the streets. We managed to catch some groups that were quite fun but we also saw some where some of the women looked quite grumpy. All in all, it was really interesting to watch and their traditional wear is so pretty!!! The little girls who are dressed up are the cutest to watch and there were some babies who were also all wrapped up and looked quite cute.

Parade down the main streets of Valencia

We went back to the Plaza over the next 2 days and it really looked quite amazing after the flowers are affixed onto the Virgin. Other than this, we also managed to catch a glimpse of the Holy Grail in the cathedral. Apparently the Vatican themselves have recognized this as the holy grail, so if you’re looking for the real thing, it’s here, no need to go all Indiana Jones or Da Vinci Code, lol...

The Holy Grail!!!

Finally, the night of the La Crema. We had already decided which one we wanted to go see burn, and since the children fallas were burnt first before the adult one, we decided to go see a children fallas in the centre of town. The stated time was 10pm but it started a little late as they had to set up the explosives and they also had some singing and stuff. They also took off some bits from the sculpture, we think those are the pieces they wanted to keep. The burning itself was quite amazing, the girl mayora will light a flare and it will then burn! Woohoo, really quite fun I must say. Though it was a children falla and we weren’t exactly super near, you can really feel the heat from the fire, 7^th month burning of hell money totally don’t beat this.

Before

After

After that, we made our way to our chosen adult falla. According to the program, the adult fallas were supposed to burn at 12 midnight so we staked out a place to sit and watch it burn. The mood was rather festive and most people were quite friendly though we were probably the only 2 Asian faces there. We sat and waited and waited and waited and waited and we almost went nuts waiting. There was also an idiot who threw a firecracker into the crowd, so we almost went deaf. We had originally planned to catch the final fireworks after our falla burnt but in the end, it was past the time and there wasn't even a glimmer of smoke from our falla yet!!! In the end, after lots and lots of waiting, the firefighters finally arrived to douse the buildings (the heat is so great, they have to do this to prevent the buildings nearby from catching fire). It was quite funny actually cos there was a guy who came out to move his plants into his house, lol... It also took them forever to remove the spotlights and then it finally start burning at 3am!!! We had waited almost 4 hours, goodness…. I don’t think I have ever waited so long for anything before, not even the Hello Kitty toys!

La Crema! Shot by shot!

It was quite amazing to watch the falla burn, the heat was so great I thought my eyebrows were burning too, and we were standing really far back I must say. Can't imagine how those who were right infront felt. In any case, the firefighters made sure you aren't too near the falla, they pushed the crowd back to prevent accidents from happening. Though we waited forever for the falla to start burning, we didn’t wait for it to finish burning before heading back to our hotel. We were just way too tired and we had to rush to Paris for our visa too. The next morning was a mad rush to get out of the hotel, so no luxury of sleeping in, sheesh... Some might feel its terrible to see all that money gone up in flames, but it's tradition to welcome the spring and burn away the unwanted past of the last year, its truly a wonderful experience. Would I go back for this festival again? Totally!!! (But with a better La Crema strategy)

Legend of the Fall(as)

While we were on our way to Valencia for Las Fallas (more about that below), we ended up in the town of Almeria as we needed a toilet break and CS was lured by a picture of grilled meat he saw by the roadside. It turned out to a totally correct decision as the pork ribs were absolutely delicious. There was only another table in the restaurant other than us but the food was so so yummy. Just look!!!

Charcoal grilled pork ribs!!!

We eventually arrived in Valencia after lots of driving and it was Fallas hunting from there onwards. The whole reason we were in Valencia was for the Fallas festival and not for the oranges (haha...), though they are really quite yummy. CS saw a picture of the festival in Rough Guides and since he’s actually a closet arsonist he just had to see this festival where they burn burn burn.

Structures taller than buildings!

Larger than life!

Smaller ones competing in kids categories

To give you some background information, according to Frommers, Las Fallas is supposed to have pagan origins where carpenters would throw out offcuts of wood into the street and set fire on them to welcome spring. It has evolved though into a huge festival where each neighbourhood will produce fallas and compete for the top prize. The festival itself is 2 weeks long but the city is most crowded in the two days leading up to March 19 when the fallas are "cremated" and the entire city goes up in flames (La Crema!). The fallas are usually made (some may costs up to $500K euros) according to a theme and are meant to be a satirical jab at anything from religion to politics and films to football. We saw quite a few fallas that poked fun at certain politicians and also the events that were taking place such as the protests taking place in the Middle East. During the 2 weeks, there are various events taking place and the whole city is just one big party.

the Comical..

the Dark..

the Beautiful.

One of the first things you have to know about Las Fallas is that during that period, kids and adults go crazy lighting firecrackers, petards (something that explodes and sounds like you are in a warzone) and borrachos (tubes which once ignited, move around in frantic thrusts, with a long tail of sparks coming out of them). The firecrackers and borrachos are fun but petards are seriously annoying cos its seriously loud. We had one thrown near us while we were waiting for La Crema (when they burn the falla) and I think I went deaf for the rest of the night.

How man has evolved from Adam to a bazooka wielding baboon.

We spent the four days in Valencia "fallas hunting" (as I call it) and it was quite fun. As all the fallas are burnt on March 19 and the 800+ fallas are spread all over the city, you have to look for one you liked so you can go camp there on the night of March 19 and see it burn. Some of the fallas were very impressive and we kept detouring from where we were going as we kept seeing fallas at every corner. The most amazing thing is that you turn one corner and there’s a falla, and then at another corner you see another one. They actually print a map which shows you where the top fallas are located, they also have smaller ones throughout which are not marked so it’s a bit of a treasure hunt.

Spanish theme?

Some of the fallas were quite amazing and you can actually pay to get up close to the falla. There was one we paid where you can actually go inside the falla and they even had performances by a student theatre group!!! Very cool. They also had a booklet which explains the various parts of the falla and what it symbolise which was rather interesting to read.

Hordes of people everywhere

Day and night

Other than fallas hunting, we also attended the other events held throughout the festival, one of them being the Mascleta where they set off fireworks in the afternoon at Plaza del Ayuntamiento. Yes its afternoon and you can’t actually see the fireworks but the point of the event is to hear the explosions and not see the fireworks. We had a good spot the first time we attended the Mascieta and during that period, everyone is silent and I mean everyone. It was quite magical actually. The best Mascieta is the last day of Las Fallas and I must say it was seriously good. While we were stuck in the middle of the street and not exactly near Plaza del Ayunmiento, the explosions were still great and definitely better than what we heard on the first day. Spaniards, just like us are also quite kiasu and people fill up Plaza del Ayunmiento quite early to secure a good spot just for this.

Amazed by the shear size and effort in building this art sculptures

Another event they have is the Castillo, which is fireworks at night. This was totally magical. The first two nights, we saw it from our hotel but we went downtown on the third night for the Nit de foc (Night of Fire Fireworks Display) and that was totally fantastic. It was held at 1.30am but there were so many people out, families, elderly couples, youngsters etc that it felt quite safe. It kinda felt like the whole city was out in full force, along with all the Spaniards from other cities. The fireworks lasted a good 15 minutes and it totally beats hands down any fireworks display in Singapore, even the ones during National Day Parade. They had all types of fireworks, ones that burst again after bursting, ones with different colors at one go, it was just spectacular. We didn’t take much pictures cos we were too busy staring at them in awe. We had to walk like mad to catch the metro back to our hotel afterwards but it was totally worth it. Oh one of the great things is that the metro runs 24 hours during Las Fallas (I think) and they had night buses so it was still easy to get back.

Awesome fireworks display

After all the pictures, can you guess which falla we went to watch burn? All will be revealed in the next entry, hehe…

The Cathedral and the Castle

As if we haven’t had enough of cathedrals and churches after Italy, we headed to Toledo for the Catedral de Toledo. Toledo was a rather small town, something like San Gimigano which we stayed at in Tuscany. It was a rather nice town to walk but since we stayed at a hotel slightly out of the city centre, we had a fair bit of a hike up a small hill to enter the city, good workout after the morning breakfast :p

From Wikipedia, ‘Toledo is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its extensive cultural and monumental heritage as one of the former capitals of the Spanish Empire and place of coexistence of Christian, Jewish and Muslim cultures, as well as the place where harsh religious persecutions where held against the Jews. Many famous people and artists were born or lived in Toledo, including Al-Zarqali, Garcilaso de la Vega, Eleanor of Toledo, Alfonso X and El Greco.’

View from the medieval city

Other than the above, Toledo is also famous for sword making and there were quite a few souvenir shops which sold full sized and miniature swords like Excalibur etc, kitschy but cute. They didn’t have any of the swords used in Lord of the Rings though, lolz…

Toledo was quite an easy town to walk around in. One of the highlights was of course the Catedral, which was rather unassuming from the exterior, in fact it looked kind of small and ordinary, however when you enter, it’s a whole different story. It was quite large and rather grand. The cathedral used to be quite poorly lit so a sculptor cut a hole in the ceiling to let more light in, lol... It’s rather well done though so if you don’t know you would have thought that it was how they had planned the cathedral to be like. With the sunlight, this is what you get to see clearly now

Inside the Cathedral

The other highlight was Iglesia de Santo Tome, which is a chapel with El Greco’s masterpiece ‘The Burial of the Count of Orgaz”. It was a bit of ‘The Last Supper” moment cos you have to queue to see the painting and just like “The Last Supper” there is another painting opposite it which no one bothers with. There is no time limit though but I think you can’t take pictures. We have never heard of El Greco before this but his paintings are quite recognizable, his faces are usually elongated and the people usually look quite tortured :p

View from the medieval city

After Toledo, we headed to Granada where I was very hyped up over Alhambra and Generalife from (a) reading Frommers which advised reserving tickets in advance and (b) pictures on the internet which looked so grand, but next time I’ll know better. We booked a tour of Alhambra from the official site as I thought it would be good to have a guide who can talk us through rather than just listening to the audioguide. Our guide was knowledgeable but her thoughts were a bit scattered, so we will get dribs drabs of information which was not pieced together nicely. We did learn that potatoes, corn and chocolate were not originally from Europe, but Americas (“New World”) instead, who knew! I mean I knew chocolate was from America but potatoes?

Inside the Nazareth Palace Granada

Cherry Blossoms in Granada

Anyway back to the tour, it included access to certain restricted areas so we had a guard following us around as he was needed unlock restricted areas included in our tour, it was almost like he was our bodyguard, lol… The tickets sold had a time restriction of either morning or afternoon and if you try entering certain sites after the time stated on your ticket, you weren’t allowed in. Alhambra and Generalife is actually open to the public, but if you want to visit certain sites within them, you have to show your ticket, so if you want to maximize your ticket, you have to plan your route carefully. The Palace of the Nasrids can only be entered at the specific time stated on the ticket so that also requires a bit of planning. They also had some restoration works going on so we couldn’t see the Court of Lions. While it is undeniably quite an interesting piece of architecture, it didn’t exactly lived up to my expectations.

The Roman Forum in Alhambra

View from Alhambra

On the whole, Toledo was much more enjoyable than Granada though I think the food in Granada was just a little bit better. And now, to Valencia to burn, baby burn!

Gaudi, Gaudi, Gaudi

After a night on the overnight ferry, we arrived at Barcelona! It was quite weird getting out of the ferry terminal, you literally just drive out from the ship and there were no customs at all. I know they are all part of the EU and they have eliminated border checks but it was still weird.

So, Barcelona, city of Gaudi and Picasso! After the Venice pick pocketing incident, we were actually a bit wary of Barcelona since the pickpockets there are supposed to be rather good. We actually spent quite a bit of time reading up on the various types of pickpocket scams and various other scams that happens in Spain. It was quite interesting to read but you also end up a little paranoid.

Anyhoo, we signed up for 2 walking tours in Barcelona, one of which was ok and one of which was really quite good. Both the tours can be signed up at the tourist office and they were relatively cheap, but of course cheap prices meant large groups, no more one-to-one with the tour guide. Our first tour was the Gothic tour which takes us through a walk in the Gothic Quarter, ‘Barcelona’s historical and political centre’. The group was really huge and I think our tour guide tried her best but she was somehow not very engaging. In addition, there was some kind of demonstration going on so I think we missed out on some areas. There were some rather nice sights though such as the Cathedral and some other which I forgot the names.

We had good meals in Barcelona and of course, being in Spain meant drinking Sangria!

Monk Fish with peppers

Pork Steak with Peppers

Fries+Pork Chunks+Chorizo+Egg = "Broken Eggs"

Super dish!

Spanish pork chops

The second tour we did was the Picasso tour and our guide was fabulous. While the group was just as huge, he was quite engaging and shared quite a few tidbits with us. It was rather interesting to visit the various places that influenced Picasso as a youth, his only public piece of art and of course the museum where you can see all his works before he started on his own unique style. As a person, he was quite horrible I think (all the wives, lovers and mistresses) but his talent is quite undeniable. Though we are not really that into art, the tour was quite interesting.

And of course what is Barcelona without Gaudi. The city had 3 of his works, Sagrada Familia (which you need to queue to go in), Casa Batllo and Casa Mila. There is also a Park Guell, which we didn’t visit due to lack of time. Apparently all his works are considered UNESCO World Heritage Sites. His works are really quite interesting and we both enjoyed them very much.

Sagrada Familia

Inside the Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia is really quite interesting, you can read all about it here. It was quite refreshing to see something different from all the churches we have visited in Italy and while it is still far from complete, I think the end product will be quite a sight to behold. There is a lift which goes up to the towers of the church and which you have to pay more for and which there is a designated time to go up. The view from the top was quite amazing and you get a pretty good view of Barcelona as most of the buildings are not very high. It was quite confusing though cos I thought we can walk across the towers but I think due to the construction going on, they sealed off the walkway. We were literally walking around in circles for a while and it was scary to look down from that height.

As for Casa Batllo and Casa Mila, Casa Batllo was quite an interesting house but I thought it wasn’t very well maintained. There were parts of the roof that had mosaic tiles falling off and some of the paintings on the wall were also chipped. It was amazing how much thought Gaudi put into each and every aspect of the building, from the doorknobs to the windows etc. Casa Mila was much better maintained and though we could only visit the roof and some parts of the terrace, more care seemed to have been taken in maintaining the building as a whole. Casa Batllo was also quite expensive to go into compared to the other two, but at the end of the day, it was still worth it.

Casa Batllo -

Gaudi's fascination with nature and its form shown here

Casa Mila / La Pedrera

Sagrada Familia and Casa Batllo both required some queueing to enter but it wasn’t excessive. Summer time may be a little more crazy though and it doesn’t seem that they restrict the number of visitors at any one time so morning may be a better time to go. There are other Gaudi buildings around Spain but I think Barcelona has the most, so all in all definitely a city to visit.

Other than all the Gaudi buildings, we also visited ‘the largest market in Europe’ La Boqueria. It’s like our wet markets in Singapore but not as wet or smelly and with nicer displays of vegetables, meat and fruit. We concluded it looked nicer cos they bother arranging the produce rather than leaving them in the cardboard boxes like how we do it in Singapore. The fruit juices there on display all looked quite yummy and it was interesting how their fruit juices were always something combined with coconut, like raspberry+coconut, strawberry+coconut etc, weird combinations but it actually turned out to be quite tasty.

Arranged with love...

Endless rows of juice combinations

Chocolates,

Chilies,

Spices and Nuts.

We also did some window shopping. I had expected Mango and Zara shops to be everywhere but I think there were slightly more Zara than Mango shops around. Prices do seem to be a little cheaper than Singapore but then again, I only buy Mango during sale and nope, I didn’t buy anything.

One thing we did end up doing in Barcelona was eating quite a fair bit of fast food. We hardly saw McDonalds or any other fast food in Italy but everywhere you go in Barcelona, there seems to be a fast food outlet. It also doesn’t help that they have lunch so late (2pm is the fashionable time to eat lunch, we have seen people strolling in at 4pm to eat lunch!) so sometimes we get so hungry the only option seems to be fast food. Tapas weren’t exactly cheap either (around 3 or 4 euros per dish and we order around 4 or 5 dishes in order to have a proper dinner) and we only had it one night at a place that had 2 baby cockroaches crawling nearby so not the most pleasant experience. We also tried the paella but its quite huge and the first time we ate it, we struggled to finish it. We ate it once in Barcelona and then decided to only eat it in Valencia since that is apparently where they have the best paella in Spain. Food portions in Spain are quite big though by our standards and we usually struggle to finish our food. Meals were also quite ‘meaty’ which was a change from Italy where it was more balanced.

Paella!

All in all though, Barcelona was quite enjoyable, not withstanding all the warnings about pickpockets. And of course since we were fresh off the Venice experience, we were on super high alert.