Tag: museum

Castellón / Valencia

Whirlwind sightseeing weekend: Monastery, rice museum

The last weekend in June (also our last in Burriana), we took advantage of having a car for our move to go to a few out-of-the-way spots that were still on our Valencian Community bucket list. First stop: the Monastery of Santa María in El Puig. Puig is Valenciano for “hill,” and indeed the monastery lies atop a large one. Guided tours are only given on a very specific schedule – there are no freeform visits, and of course it’s closed on Sunday. We decided to go on Saturday afternoon after the lunch descanso. Jaume I, the king who conquered much

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Burriana / Castellón / Museums / Valencia

Valencian Community: sights unseen

We traveled quite a bit our first year in Spain, but sometimes it was relaxing to spend a weekend at home. After returning from a long week and a half traveling to the Netherlands and to Tenerife for spring break, we started the last weekend of April with lunch in nearby Castellón de la Plana before making our way to the city’s fine arts museum when it reopened after the afternoon descanso. At some point during our visit, we discovered Dreamer had become a friolera, the local word for someone who is sensitive to cold. This room was maybe 60°F. There was art

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Burriana / Holidays / Valencia

Flowered crosses and modern art in May

A little more than a month after Fallas transformed our town, the local groups who created the giant papier-mâché monuments that were burned at the end of that festival got their creative juices flowing once more – this time to construct giant monuments made of flowers. Valencians, it appears, are really into ephemeral art. Technically, the monuments were supposed to feature crosses, as Burriana – like much of Spain – was celebrating the Cruces de Mayo (Crosses of May) festival the first weekend of that month. As we came to see, however, the cross concept proved a very loose jumping off point. Since the

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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

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