We joined a group from the school to walk to La Crida, the official opening of the month long festival of La Fallas. Our guide/teacher warned us it would be crowded. “If you get lost, well…you’ll be lost. But you are independent, so I won’t worry. Have fun.”

As a group we joined the thickening hoards moving towards the big road on the edge of the old city that leads to the city gate where the ceremony would take place. We joined the road, and about 50,000 people, squeezing into the larger crowd straining to see the tv screen broadcasting the events at the gate some 6 blocks away.

After spending 20 minutes mushed against a parked police car – in a fog of cigarette smoke – R and I split off. We pushed and shoved our way through the crowd and climbed the barricade on the other side of the road to reach the space on the sidewalk above the river park. From there we had some breathing room and a somewhat better view. 

We still couldn’t see the gate and stage where the ceremony was taking place, but we had a better view of the screen and fireworks. And what a show. It started with the orchestra, which played for the acrobat riding a gigantic illuminated dove that flew over the crowds.

Dance performances and a round of fireworks introduced the fallera mayor and the fallera infantil (the adult and child “princesses” of the Fallas) (princess isn’t quite the right word, but close) who would (in their best Valenciano) declare Las Fallas open. Everyone sang the Valenican anthem – which, unsurprisingly, is about how Valencia is the best city in the world and how wonderful it is to be Valencian – and another round of fireworks closed things up.

Our guide from the school, Victor, had explained that the symbolic reopening of the gates recalled the era when they were used for real every day. If you got in before nightfall you had the protection of the city; if not, you were left out in the flat, treeless, featureless campo and had “only the protection of the moon.”