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Valencia – Day 1

The last day in Barcelona yesterday was good. but the weather was the pits. We saw some sights and enjoyed some good food, but the photo ops were pretty much non-existent. Despite our overall good attitude, we were a little bummed.

Today was the 3 1/2 hour train ride to the city of Valencia for the 2011 Las Fallas festival. We were here two years ago and simply fell in love.

As we left Barcelona the rain was falling in earnest and the weather reports called for rain in Valencia for at least a few days. But as we got close to Valencia the skies began to clear and by the time we got tot he hotel it was downright sunny. Huzzah!

Valencia, even without the festival, is a fantastic and picturesque city. Add to that the fallas and it becomes magical.

Sadly, due to all the rain of the last week, many of the fallas have been damaged. The artists are working fast and furious to repair them and seem to be doing a good job. Today is the day they are being officially setup so the ones we are seeing are in various states of completion and repair.

We came back to the hotel room after enjoying a nice lunch at Pappardella, an Italian restaurant we found during our last visit.

We spent almost two hours over a leisurely lunch and a bottle of local Rioja

Since leaving Barcelona this morning Cynthia has been a little sick. Nothing major, but an upset stomach and some fatigue have taken her a bit off her game. The lunch really helped, but we knew we’d both benefit from a siesta so we went back to the room and sacked out for a few hours. When we got up we headed back out. The evening weather here is pretty perfect. And the city and the fallas are very cool at night.

Now were are back in the room and considering our options. There is a huge fireworks display at midnight. If we have the energy we may head out to see that. If not, there’s another one tomorrow night. And the night after that. And the night after that.

It’s good to have options!

Barcelona – Day 3 – Part 1

The sun came out today. After a full day of rain yesterday we were very happy to see it. We got up and headed out for some breakfast and then walked down La Rambla to the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia aka the Barcelona Cathedral to watch the Sardana dances.

La Rambla was bustling early. The crowds were building fast and the human statues were gearing up for a busk-o-rama day.

And the beggars were also taking advantage of the sunshine.

Walking through the Barri Gotic on the way to the cathedral we marvelled at the ornamentation on the buildings in the neighborhood

During our wandering we stumbled upon the secluded Gothic cloister which encloses the Well of the Geese (Font de les Oques) where 13 white geese are kept, the number explained by the assertion that Eulalia was 13 when she was martyred.

After communing with the geese for a bit we found our way to the front of the cathedral for the main event. Each Sunday the citizens of Barcelona gather in front of the cathedral for for the Sardana Dances. Some to dance, other just to watch and listen to the cobla.

After this it was back to the hotel to recombobulate and have a snack. The walk back was met by extremely large throngs of people jamming La Rambla

Next up, La Sagrada Familia

Barcelona – Day 2

As the weather sites have all been saying for the last few weeks, today is a day of heavy rain. I’d hoped the forecast would change as we got closer to arrival, but it did not.

Fortunately, we packed foul weather gear and have been moving about. The first stop today was La Boqueria for some breakfast at The Bar Central Cafe and then to have a look around and take some photos.

It is a unique market with fresh produce, meat and seafood. Some of the seafood is so fresh it tries to crawl, slither or otherwise wriggle out of the display.

Las Fallas 2011

We’re going back to Las Fallas!

*UPDATE* We’ve returned from Las Fallas. All of my pics can be seen by clicking here!

Of all the places in the world Cynthia and I have traveled to, no place has captured our imagination in quite the same way as Valencia, Spain. And this is due to the annual Las Fallas celebration held there each year. The festival kicks off in late February, but the most important portion takes place from March 15th to the 19th. This is the period where the Fallas-Sculptures are setup all over the city. Hundreds of them. And the the Fallas-Sculptures are what this festival is really all about.

Way back in the olden days (the middle ages), the Fallas-Sculptures were just piles old junk that were being moved out of the workshops after the winter and burned. Over the years people began dressing the junk in old clothes, painting faces on it and creating something satirical out of the piles of debris.

What they have evolved into is something quite spectacular

Each neighborhood of the city has an organized group of people, the Casal faller, that works all year long holding fundraising parties and dinners, usually featuring the famous speciality paella. A casal faller is also known as a comissió fallera.

These sculptures are magnificent and they are everywhere around the city of Valencia. Some of them reach as high as 6 or more stories in height and can be quite expensive to build. The larger Fallas can cost upwards of 600.000€ (over 3/4 of a million dollars), all paid by the members of the Falla-Community, donations only.

During the course of the festival the Fallas are just on display, but at the end of the festival they are ceremonially burned to the ground.

If you can imagine it, millions of people roaming the streets and hundreds of Fallas burning. The whole city is covered in smoke and fire. It is unbelievable.

And that is not all there is to Las Fallas, either. The festival itself is a Valencian traditional celebration in praise of Saint Joseph. So that means there’s religious overtones to the entire event.

During 2 days of the festival there is what is called the Ofrenda de Flores a la Virgen de los Desamparados (flower offering to our Lady of the Forsaken) where thousands of women dressed in traditional garb parade into the city on 4 major parade routes and carrying carnations which they then hand off to men who use them to build the dress of a large statue of the Virgin Mary.

And to answer the question I always get asked, NO, she is not burned.

The last major component of Las Fallas is the fireworks. All day long from dawn to the wee hours of the morning there are explosions. Incidental fireworks going off all day long. You can buy them at the local store and detonate them at will…just about anywhere you want.

There are two primary fireworks displays that occur each day.

The first is a mid-day event known as the Mascleta (sound fireworks). This is a mid-day detonation that takes place at 2 pm each day and is designed not so much to be seen, but to be heard. 10’s of thousands of people crowd the main square to get as close as they can to the detonation site and for 20 minutes fireworks are detonated. Cynthia and I got in close once and during the event you cannot hear your own voice even if you scream at the top of you lungs.

The second is an evening display. Well, I say evening. It starts about 1:00 am and is the most spectacular display i have ever seen. It lasts for about 30 minutes and then it’s over for the night. Everyone heads back to find food or get some sleep before things kick off again around 8:00 am

All in all, this is a very unique festival. And we enjoyed it so much in 2009 that we decided to go back this year. We’re also taking a side trip to Barcelona, another of our favorite destinations. Look for updates and pictures here. If you want to see photos and travelog of the last trip to Las Fallas, you can find it here. Several pages of pics and commentary over the course of our experience.

BB KING – Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos of the BB KING concert on October 9th @ Verizon Wireless Theater in Houston

Prague – Day 10

Well, it’s our last day in Prague. Vienna seems so long ago at this point. We’re totally sated in every way and ready to come home. If all goes well, we have a car picking us up at 5:30 am to go to the airport. We’re crossing our fingers in hopes that he shows up.

We took it relatively easy today. Just some walking around. Again, we found some things we had been kinda keeping an eye out for.

We headed to Wenceslas Square to see if we could locate the Lucerna Gallery to see the sculpture “Saint Wenceslas Riding an Upside-Down Horse” and succeeded

A quirky sculpture, to be sure.

From there we just wanted to walk around. We explored the area by the river right next to the Charles Bridge. While walking around we stumbled upon a REAL puppet shop. In case you didn’t know, Prague is famous for puppets. Especially Marionette style puppets. There are stores everywhere selling cheap and, frankly crappy puppets that look to be mass produced and are there for the tourists exclusively. But this shop was different. These puppets were hand made by a group of Czech artisans and had all the charm of something that hearkened to a bygone era. The shopkeeper allowed me some time to photograph in the shop, which I think was very kind and generous.

We couldn’t find a puppet we wanted enough to justify the cost and the effort of getting it home. But it was nice to see this place. Cynthia bought a little hand carved sheep as a souvenir and a token of our appreciation for the time the shopkeeper spent with us.

All we did the rest of the day was walk and walk which lead us to stumble upon another thing we were looking for.

This is the monument to the students that were injured by the police in the protests that precipitated the Velvet Revolution.

I’ve got a lot more photos to process when we get home and I’ll be trickling those out as time permits.

We’re back at the apartment just relaxing now. We’re packed and ready to come home. What a glorious adventure this has been. Thank to everyone who followed along here and on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. I’ve got a lot of photos to process. I’ll be trickling those out as time permits.

Prague – Day 9

Another gorgeous day in Prague!

We have one more full day in Prague before packing it in and heading back to H-Town. Without a doubt, we are winding down. We’ve got nothing pressing us for time so we’re just taking in this magnificent city for the last few days at as leisurely a pace as we can.

Cynthia wanted to get the post cards in the mail. They will certainly arrive in the US after we do, but no matter.

As we were looking for the post office we chanced down a street and found the Kafka monument

It was something we wanted to see, but had not put much effort into finding. A happy happenstance.

After we couldn’t find the post office we stepped into a tourist information center and asked. A helpful young man set us on the correct path and we were off again. This time we stumbled upon something we definitely wanted to see, knew was here, but had no idea where it could be. We saw it on the cab ride in to town and it was on our minds.

One symbolic element of the demonstrations of the Velvet Revolution was the jingling of keys, to symbolize the unlocking of doors. When 300,000 protesters flooded Wenceslas Square, noisily jangling their keys in a symbolic call to throw off communism it must have been something to see (and hear).

To commemorate this event on the 20th anniversary, people from all over the Czech Republic brought 85,741 keys to the local Vofaphon shops. These keys were then made into a sculpture by artist Jili David that resides in Franz Kafka Square.

The sculpture spells the word “Revoluce!” which is Czech for “Revolution!”

The sculpture is amazing and thought provoking.

After admiring the monument we found the post office and Cynthia sent them on their way.

From there we headed back to the park at the top of the hill where the giant metronome is. This is the park we visited yesterday. I wanted to see if I could get some shots from up there using my panorama equipment. We spend about an hour up there before heading back down.

While we were there we noticed there were a lot of policemen around and many people carrying balloons and wearing hats that had something written on them. Since we didn’t read Czech, we had no idea what they said and we couldn’t figure out what was going on. We made our way back to our breakfast place and got some food. After that we headed back out just to stroll around. We had decided to go to the river and explore the north and the east.

As we got to the Manesuv bridge we noticed the police had the street blocked off and that there was something going on at the Galerie Rudolfinum. There were hundreds of people and a public address system. There were news crews and a helicopters flying overhead. Something big was happening.

As we got closer to the bridge and were about tot turn right we noticed hundreds more people marching down the bridge with signs blowing whistles and vuvuzelas.

Then we saw that is was not hundreds of people. It was THOUSANDS of people.

And thousands more were pouring down from the hill top where the giant metronome is.

More and more streaming down from the hill top

The crowds were filling both bridges we could see and all converging on Galerie Rudolfinum. Cynthia and I were not going anywhere until this was over.

Apparently the civil service workers (police, firemen, etc.) we’re protesting proposed budget cuts that would reduce their salaries by 10%. Here’s an article I found online about the protests.

Thousands of people protest in Prague against budget cuts

It did eventually die down and we were able to move on and enjoy our walk.

Tomorrow is our last day. The weather forecast says more good weather. We’ll probably take it easy and get things packed up for our departure on Thursday. I am anxious for home. I love to travel, but I miss my own bed for sleeping.

Prague – The Tiger Lillies

Cynthia bought a copy of the Prague Post the other day because it is printed in English. I was looking at the entertainment section and there on the cover was the unmistakable visage of Martyn Jacques of The Tiger Lillies. I read the article and it turns out the band was playing 5 nights in Prague as part of a theater show at the Archa called “Here I Am Human”

These guys never come to Houston and have rarely played in the United States, but they have quite a cult following and I figured I should seize this opportunity. As it turns out, the Archa is only an easy 15 minute walk from our apartment. We decided we’d check it out and purchased tickets.

The theme of the show is, as the name would suggest, about being human. It was not a concert, per se. It was an avant-guarde stage performance featuring a narrator explaining various aspects of what it is to be a human being.

He took the audience from biblical creation and being cast out of the garden of Eden through Darwinism and explained how we as humans separated ourselves from our more animal instincts. Of course all the narration was in Czech with minimal English subtitles so I am sure much was lost in the lack of translation. But the performance of the actors did a good job of keeping us on the story track.

All the while The Tiger Lillies were on the stage and performed songs they had written for the show. Sometimes as background music

Most of the time as musical interludes during the stage performance.

The songs themselves were in English so that was a plus. Some of the songs were really quite good while others catered to the more base aspects of the story line.

I should point out that the above photos are not mine. They were provided by the Archa Theater for me to use. But I did take my camera and was able to get a shot of me posing with the band after the show thanks to Cynthia.