Search Results for “parade” – Page 5

¡Juega! Carnaval, truffles, and fútbol

Sometimes, that one weekend hits where you know you need to remain home because fun stuff is going on all around you. The last weekend of February was like this for us. Saturday: Carnaval in Vinaròs About an hour north of us in our province, Vinaròs is famed for having the best Brazilian-style Carnaval around. Since Lent was coming, we thought we should check it out. We arrived with a little bit of time before the parade and decided to check out the town. Needless to say, we did not leave disappointed. Once the parade began, it was a nonstop party. We

February 23, 2017 Holidays / Las Fallas / Valencia

Finding Ninot: Museo Fallero, Valencia

Last month, Doer and I previewed Valencia’s upcoming, most famous cultural event with a visit to the Fallas Museum. Located in an old convent near the City of Arts and Sciences, the Museo Fallero hosts each year’s pardoned ninots. The museum also has a great brochure on the tradition if you want to read more about it here. The festival dates originated in the mid-18th century, when people gathered on the eve of Saint Joseph’s Day to erect and burn satirical monuments made of wood, cloth, and cardboard. The festival became more complex and artistic around the beginning of the 20th century, becoming

January 27, 2017 Burriana / Holidays / Valencia

Feliz Navidad – or Bon Nadal – in the Valencian Community

As lifelong Nebraskans, Doer and I tend to associate the holiday season with cold and snow. This year, we traded all of that in for sunshine and orange trees. And lots of life-sized nativity scenes, like the above display, which we came across in the city of Valencia. Though local Valencians have embraced their winter season with warm coats, hats, scarves, and gloves, most days Doer and I walk around in our mangas cortas – short sleeves – and we’ve come to expect a refrain of, “no tienes frío?” (aren’t you cold?) wherever we go. Feels like spring break. The last

January 19, 2017 Barcelona / Holidays / Tourism

Barcelona: The Return

We heard there was a Christmas market in Barcelona famous for its pooping figurines. Conveniently, we also had a free weekend in December. Other unaccomplished things from our last Barcelona trip could also be done. Therefore, we had to go. The Fira de Santa Llucia is one of Barcelona’s oldest Christmas markets. Catalunya – the Northeast area of Spain anchored by Barcelona – also happens to be home to some fun Christmas traditions centered around poop. And you know we can’t turn down such humor. First, there is Caga Tió (literally, shitting log). The following comic explains it better than we ever could. Now, we

December 14, 2016 Strolling / Tourism / Valencia

Weekend in Valencia

Rental car in hand, a few weeks ago we decided to finally bite the bullet and spend a weekend in Valencia without worrying about train schedules and such. The big city is so close, yet so far away when dealing with public transit (just 1 hour from us). This time, we got a hotel for a couple of nights so we could really explore. One of the sights we’d been trying to see for a while now was La Lonja de la Seda (Silk Exchange), a mercantile exchange built between 1482 and 1548. The Gothic architecture is pretty stunning. According to Wikipedia (we

October 29, 2016 Burriana

Giant people, aaaah!

We are very proud of our little town’s ability to throw a good parade. We’ve seen two or three so far and there seem to be many more to come. They accomplish in 15-20 minutes what apparently takes four hours in Valencia. As opposed to the Nou d’Octubre celebration there, ours was arguably much cooler and over in just a fraction of the time, while still giving the gist of the occasion. The dancing figures were particularly cool. Thar Be real, normal-sized people under there. You can see them lined up above and in the videos below. We are told