Las Fallas

The first sign is the noise. From 1 March a mascletà goes off at 14:00 in the City Hall square: a daytime firecracker show, loud enough that you plan your lunch around it. It is repeated every day until the 19th, and by the second week the whole city seems to live around that hour.

Then comes the plantà, the night when the fallas rise. Each neighbourhood association sets up a monument in its street, some of them several storeys high. The children's fallas go up on 15 March and the large ones overnight into 16 March, with cranes and crews working through the night. A jury then judges them, and one ninot, one figure of the whole exhibition, is chosen to be spared from the fire, the ninot indultat.

The middle days are for processions and fireworks. On 17 March comes the Flower Offering to Our Lady of the Forsaken, which runs into the early hours of the 18th. On the night of 18 March the Nit del Foc fireworks light the sky above the Monteolivete bridge, shortly before midnight.

On the 19th, St Joseph's day, a fire parade opens the evening. The cremà starts with the children's fallas at 20:00; all the others burn from 22:00, and the monument in front of City Hall goes last, at 23:00, according to the 2026 schedule. A year of work in the streets is gone in a few hours.

How to go. The dates are fixed, so the plantà is 15 and 16 March and the cremà the night of 19 March every year. Book your bed early, because the festival is a major event for the whole city. The tourist board and the city council publish the official programme each year.