Search Results for: fallas

Las Fallas / Valencia

Is that ninot I see, or is it just a Fallas-y?

WARNING: there is a lot of male nudity depicted in this post! We are not kidding. In March of 2018, nostalgia drove us back to our first Spanish home to experience another Valencian Fallas celebration. First things first: we headed to our favorite fried dough place for an indulgent breakfast. A charanga, or small musical group common to street festivals, entertained the hungry line with that old Valencian classic. Seeing how the bunyuelos were made was equally entertaining. Speaking of can’t-miss Valencian treats, we could’t visit the city without visiting our favorite horchatería, Daniel in Alboraya.  Later, we enjoyed some

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Burriana / Las Fallas / Strolling

Finding Ninot: All aboard the Burriana Fallas Train!

Choo, choo! The fallas train is about to depart and take you all around our town’s different displays! Our small city featured a surprising number of fallas during their namesake festival this March. Yes, there was a real “train” that drove through the streets, taking passengers past each one. And yes, we did wait in line for an hour and a half to ride it. Before we get to the train, let’s take a look at what got us to this point: fallas, you’ll remember, are grand artistic monuments constructed in different cities and towns around the Valencian Community and displayed during the weeklong celebration, at the

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Burriana / Restaurants

The Fallas are coming!

After visiting the quintessential Spanish city, we returned to Burriana with Dad and Deb to find a lot had changed, starting with the enormous falla that had materialized outside our apartment building during our four-day absence. We will finally get to the Fallas in our next several blog posts, we promise. While the festival did take up a lot of our time during Dad and Deb’s visit to the Valencian Community, we did manage to show them a few non-Fallas highlights in Burriana, so we wanted to get that out of the way here first. Although Burriana is a seaside community, we

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Madrid

Sheep in the streets!

We are no strangers to parades. When we lived in the Valencian Community last year, there seemed to be one every weekend. But we hadn’t seen any locals take to the streets in the first months after our move to Madrid last summer. In October, however, that changed – in a big way. Despite our repeated exposure to traditional dress, musicians, fireworks, and the occasional horse in Valencian parades, we were in no way prepared to see thousands of animals making their way through a major world capital. The Fiesta de la Transhumancia, or Transhumance Festival, is a nod to

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Castellón / Holidays

Look at all the Pascuals!

We’ve often observed traditional festivals in Spain, but usually as outsiders. We stand outside to watch parades, we go to museums to learn more, we stay up all night to see the bonfires. In May, we didn’t see any of the official festivities in honor of San Pascual Bailón in Villarreal, but we got to do something even better – we went to a party. The above is the only San Pascual-related photo we’ve got, because we were leaving for a trip the next day and didn’t see how the city marked the occasion. The rest of the post is

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Andalucía / Tourism

Competing courtyards? Yes, please!

Spain brings many images to mind. Bulls, maybe, or flamenco. Paella or sangria, even. Before she ever set foot in the country, Dreamer associated Spain with courtyards. However, when we moved to the Valencian Community, on the eastern coast of the country, we did not find tranquil inner courtyards in abundance. We learned these cool sanctuaries – which have traditionally provided respite from the brutal heat – primarily exist in the south, especially the city of Córdoba. When Dreamer learned the city has a two-week competitive festival devoted to courtyards (called patios in Spain), we couldn’t book train tickets fast

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