Another European Adventure with the Emlets: 03/05/14

Fallas crowd

Hola from Valencia. Home of Las Fallas, Valencia's largest and craziest festival. It is all built around neighborhoods making and then burning down gigantic effigies. It starts next week, but apparently we are in "pre-Fallas". We had heard from our landlord that at 2:00 every day this week there is a "mascletas" fireworks display, which is really just lots and lots of NOISE, like Ariel bombs, that go for 5 minutes down at city hall. Yesterday we heard them from the apartment, today we went down there. CRAZY. There are literally thousands and thousands of people.

We stood by a woman from Valencia who spoke good English. She warned us not to
cover our ears but to keep our mouths open so as not to burst your eardrums. At exactly 2:00
the Ariel bombs went off for a full 5 minutes. Incredible! The earth shook.

big traffic jam afterward.

Honestly, it was thrilling and stupid at the same time. At the end the people waved and clapped. I didn't get it.

Then we walked out of this mass of humanity and went t the bullfighting ring which is right by the train station.

We had a Valencia Pass that got us in for only 1 euro. Fun to see, but again, bullfighting is not my sort of thing.

Train station, beautiful

Board where you see where your train will leave from

beautiful mosaics in the station

Bull ring--getting ready for Fallas

We went into the bull ring. It is all ready for the big Fallas week.

Then we went into the Bullfighting museum, which was sort of cool. The matadors are like legends (as are the bulls) in Spain.

famous bulls

We watched a movie of a bullfight. Lots of pageantry, lots of tradition, but at the end the bull dies and that was gross. So we are thinking....no bull fight for us.

It was a gorgeous day, so we jumped on a couple of buses and went back to the sea side. Please notice we are both wearing color today, and short sleeves!

Jerry showing pictures of fish to a fisherman on the beach

Ugly black shoes have no place here.

The bar we would go to later.

Jerry is goin' in

It is beautiful and sandy, and hardly anyone there. They think it is cold, but after Iowa this seems fabulous.

like pelican lake when we put the dock in

Another pitcher of Sangria and this time nuts, olives and

garlic shrimp. Yum

We tarried there for a long time, then hopped back on a bus and went as far as the Turia park which is a city scape that is public space and gorgeous. We walked and walked. Gorgeous day.