Woke up to sunshine, but the howling wind we’d heard during the night hadn’t moderated. Hence the strange paradox of a walk down a beautiful but all but deserted beach, shoved on from behind and wishing our down layers were a bit thicker.

We found some protection out on the long stone breakwater where the Gandía ferries leave for Ibiza; in the lee of it, we sat on a bench and watched terns diving and dining.

Back north into the wind proved a real challenge and we were glad to retreat into a restaurant for very authentic, er, pizza and beer.

Afterwards into Gandía itself, with no particular goal, but we were delighted to stumble into the middle of “la planta”- installation (planting) of the ninots in preparation for the Crema – the coming finale (which alas we’ll miss) of the whole month-long Falles festival. 

(We’ve been here a month and I’ve only just grasped that crema has nothing to do with cream. It’s cognate with cremate, being Catalan / Valenciano for burning – what happens to most of the ninots at the end.)

I’m not sold on the dominant Disney cartoon style, but these things are nevertheless hugely impressive. Some of them take up whole intersections:

One, a sort of fantasy history of the universe called Origen, was a mere couple of meters high but particularly imaginative and intricate, complete with a personified comet bringing the Earth its water, a figure in the middle stirring the Primordial Soup, a star being born, a black hole tucking someone in, and dozens more. A team of people was still working on it, touching up paint etc. We thought it should definitely win the prize and be saved:

Ok, we were mostly delighted. There’s an infectious social energy and effort that goes into Falles. You can see why people are so dedicated to it, and proud of the sense of cultural identity it embodies – perhaps in part because of the sense that there’s something at once joyfully communal and creative but also joyfully pointless about it. Lots of food involved, including of course paella:

OTOH part of the fireworks theme involves everyone aged 7-17 running around in the streets gleefully throwing firecrackers. By the time we left our ears were ringing.

K here. We walked the streets in “downtown” Gandia keeping an eye out for any tourist stops we thought we should come back to see. It is a pretty town, but the beach won out.