Tag Archives: Fallas Festival

The Bustling Streets of Valencia

If you don’t like crowds, you should avoid Valencia during the Fallas festival. I rarely saw any trouble. The crowds were almost always in good mood or, at the very least, resigned to not moving very fast. It appears that moving fast can be accomplished if you hire someone in a high-vis vest who will barge through the crowd, dragging a well-dressed family behind them to the front of the crowd. I saw that once as I waited for the Mascletà one bright sunny day last week.


Apertureƒ/1.7
CameraGalaxy S23 Ultra
Focal length6.3mm
ISO10
Shutter speed1/230s

The Jerusalem Convent-Matemático Marzal Falla

If you visit Valencia during the first 19 days of the month of March you’ll be bombarded by the loud bangs of bangers going off, and fireworks every day. You’ll also come across elaborate Falla, or statues, dotted around the city.

In the past, they were built of papier mache, but these days the main construction material is styrofoam. On the 20th of the March, all the Fallas in the city are burnt to the ground, with only one item from each saved.

The best Falla in 2025 was the one built at Jerusalem Convent-Matemático Marzal, and luckily, I was staying about 100m away. In reality, that didn’t help much because the crowds visiting there during the day meant it was almost impossible to walk past it quickly. The only time the streets were nearly empty was at 5am one morning when I was going to take sunrise photos.

Here’s only a small selection of photos from that area. There’s more to come, mostly of crowded streets, but the Falla will feature again, probably.


Apertureƒ/2.4
CameraGalaxy S23 Ultra
Focal length7.9mm
ISO50
Shutter speed1/125s

Close

Ad-blocker not detected

Consider installing a browser extension that blocks ads and other malicious scripts in your browser to protect your privacy and security. Here are a few options.

  • uBlock Origin is a free, open source, ad blocker for your browser.
  • Use pi-hole if you have a spare Raspberry Pi on your network.
  • Set the private DNS settings on your phone to dns.adguard.com to block adverts and trackers.