Folklore Parade

The Folklore Parade is an event that shows off the rich cultural heritage of Valencia. Lots of traditional costumes and pageantry.

The parade was supposed to start at 10:30 pm. It ended up starting close to 11:30. The crowds were massive and we ended up staking out a spot where the lighting was not so good but still had a great view of the event.

Only a few shots as processing these images on the MSI Wind is challenging

Ninot Exhibition

A few samples of the ninots from the exhibition. Each one is about the size of a person and is only a small part of the entire fallas, of which there are nearly 300 scattered about the city after the planta which is today.

Cynthia was, as those who know might imagine, quite delighted to find a giraffe ninot…

This gives you an idea of the workmanship that goes into these things.

Hard to imagine that these will all be burned at the end of the festival.

Arrival Valencia

We left Houston on a 5:30 pm flight to Paris. Once we arrived in Paris we cleared customs and made our way to the local terminal to catch our short hop flight on Air Europa to Valencia.

The plane was late leaving the gate in Paris due to some passengers who had not shown up. They indicated they needed to remove their luggage since they would not be on the flight.

Once we backed out from the gate we were stalled for a bit longer. Must have been some medical emergency as the pilot actually came on the intercom and asked if there was a doctor on board. Never saw what was going on, but we did not go back to the gate and were eventually on our way.

By the time we arrived in Valencia we had been awake the better part of 24 hours. We checked in and decided to take a walk around town and have a look see.

It’s crowded here. And there’s an endless barrage of fireworks being detonated. And from what we hear, the festival not even in full swing yet.

We headed for the mascaleta but it was over before we got there. Even so, it was LOUD. We’re going to attend tomorrow’s for the full effect.

After that we had some lunch and then took the bus to the Ninot Exhibition. This is where they take one of the smaller figures or components from each of the fallas that will be on display during the festival just to showcase the artisans. Today was the last day of the exhibition before the minots were returned so the falls could be setup.

We headed back to the hotel and took a 3 hour nap before heading back out this evening for the Folkloric Parade. This started up about 11:00 pm and ran till 1:30 am and featured all kind of groups. marching band and dancers dressed up in traditional costumes.

It’s 1:30 am now and there’s still an abundant number of fireworks punctuating the night and there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon.

Too tired to process pics. Hopefully will have some online tomorrow to show you. Now it’s off to bed.

East Side Represent

John Nova Lomax invited me to go on one of his Sole Of Houston walks. This time he was hitting the east side. The plan was to just sort of meander out to 75th Street and then head north to Canal and then head back to town. It was VERY interesting. We started about 9:30 am and finished about 4:30 pm. We covered a LOT of ground. You can read the story here: Sole Of Houston: East Side Story — Trains, Tequila, Dogs & Grief. There’s several more of my photos in the posting.

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