Valencia |Carlos Bazarra(EFE).- The city of Valencia, already plagued by ninots in each neighborhood and in a festive and almost summer atmosphere, faces its big week of Fallas with great economic and tourist expectations: they will be the first without anticovid measures, there is a good weather forecast and its final stretch coincides with the weekend.
This weekend, the Valencian capital lives a privileged preview of its festivities -declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016- with an endless menu of outdoor events, thanks also to temperatures close to 30 degrees these days which, according to Aemet, will soften during the week but with a rosy forecast both for the fallas artists who have to plant their monuments and for the thousands of people who, economically, depend on the good weather-festive pairing.
And it is that the Fallas of 2022 were the rainiest and with the fewest hours of sun in 84 years, with a cold and soulless atmosphere that did not fit with the traditional “time of Fallas”.
Assembly of the great monuments
Since Friday, almost 200 festivals have been held, concerts such as the two-day festival in the Alameda, fireworks (to the massive mascletà every day at two in the afternoon in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento are added those organized in other neighborhoods) , the assembly of monuments has begun (the most spectacular, those of the Special section), hundreds of paellas are celebrated in tents and country houses…
There is a lot of optimism and there is a general atmosphere of normality after the pandemic that conditioned the Fallas so much: those of 2020 were suspended, those of 2021 were postponed to September and those of 2022 still had restrictions due to the covid; This year, the world of Fallas breathes with hope despite the inflation and economic uncertainty derived from the war in Ukraine, and is looking forward to the extensive program of events that will culminate on Sunday 19, the feast of Saint Joseph, with the “cremà” of the almost 800 fallas, between large and childish and that this year have cost 8.54 million.
Meanwhile, children and adolescents, traditionally those who enjoy these festivities the most, relentlessly empty their boxes of firecrackers, which turn Valencia into endless explosions, smoke and the smell of gunpowder – this year a pyrotechnic “truce” of 15 is recommended. to 5:00 p.m., especially for pets-, and Tuesday will be their last day of class.
Tourist optimism, fallas investment and festive calendar
Regarding the hotel occupancy scheduled for the central week of the festivities, according to the forecasts of the City Council it will reach 72.9%, a percentage that will increase to 86.5% on the nights of the 17th and 18th, which means exceeding the figures of the last five years.
In addition, the fact that Monday, March 20, is a holiday in the Community of Madrid has also influenced the fact that on the night of the 19th to the 20th, an occupancy rate of more than 74% is expected.
This year, the nine Fallas commissions of the Special section have invested 1.4 million euros in their monuments, which will be the most visited and photographed next to the municipal one in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (out of competition), which is 20 meters high and made entirely of wood, a woman (Marina Puche, together with the fallero artist Manolo García) designed it for the first time: it is a giant heart that lights up and beats with everything that causes good feelings.
The official plantà of the children’s fallas will be on Tuesday and of the big ones, on Wednesday; those days it will be known which ninots are saved from the fire by popular vote and which fallas take the first prize awarded by the jury.
Now without restrictions due to the pandemic or the works in the central Plaza de la Reina, the Floral Offering to the Virgen de los Desamparados (the “Geperudeta”) will take place between Friday and Saturday, when up to 103,317 people will be able to parade through it, according to the updated census of the Junta Central Fallera and that exceeds the pre-covid figures.
And there will be nocturnal fireworks displays -from Wednesday to Saturday of the Nit del Foc- but this year with an important novelty: they move from Paseo de la Alameda to the surroundings of the City of Arts and Sciences.
Security and incidents
Until now, the most notable incident has been the diversion of a casing during the mascletà fired this Friday by Pirotecnia Zaragozana in the Town Hall square, which left around twenty minor injuries due to burns and hearing problems.
Since February 26 (Cridà Sunday, the first major day of massive events of the Fallas), the Red Cross has already attended 339 people, the majority for minor interventions; fainting, especially caused by the intense heat this week in acts of massive concentration of people, such as the mascletaes, now amount to 227.
The extraordinary security device contemplates 1,800 national police officers who will be deployed for the festive events, while the Civil Guard, in addition to controlling the pyrotechnic products, will increase the surveillance of the districts that surround Valencia and the accesses to the city; The entire staff of the Local Police will be available, as well as the 400 city firefighters and a hundred Civil Protection volunteers.
In addition, the City Council has installed six Violet Points, tents for information, awareness and prevention of sexist attacks, distributed throughout the city, and another 65 of these spaces are set up in Fallas commissions, neighborhood entities and citizen associations.
Both the EMT and Metrovalencia (metro and tram) offer special 24-hour uninterrupted service plans, a key factor for moving around the city as hundreds of streets are blocked by faults and tents and many others are restricted during massive acts of parades or celebrations. . It’s time to wear comfortable shoes but this year, in principle, without having to take the umbrella.