Valencia

Valencia welcomes spring with its most colourful and famous festival. Gigantic papier mache monuments, known as fallas, with effigies usually representing celebrities or politicians in a satirical way, are set up on streets and squares throughout the city and burnt to a cinder in spectacular bonfires on the last day of the celebration. The Flower Offering to the Virgen de los Desamparados, when thousands of falleras and falleros in traditional costumes parade through the city, is also a sight to behold.

The whole month of July is a fiesta in Valencia. Concerts, al fresco cinema, stand-up comedy, fireworks displays, folk dances, parades, street markets… the programme of the Gran Fira (Great Valencia Fair) features more than 100 events at different locations throughout the city. Don’t miss the Battle of Flowers on the last Sunday, when brightly coloured floats and horse-drawn carriages parade through the city, with men, women, and children in lavish, traditional costumes tossing flowers out into the cheering crowds.

Día de la Comunidad Valenciana, which commemorates the liberation of the city from the Moors, brings along one of the most peculiar and charming Valencian traditions. In a kind of “alternative Valentine’s day”, men give their loved ones a special gift of marzipan figurines of fruits and vegetables wrapped in a silk scarf known as the mocadora.

The Gran Premio de la Comunidad Valenciana is a key annual fixture in the Moto GP calendar. Thousands of motorcycling fans head to the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Cheste, about an hour from the city, to cheer on their national and international heroes.

The Trinidad Alfonso EDP Valencia Marathon is the highlight of the annual calendar of running events that take place in Valencia, an ideal city for the practice of this sport because of its flat seaside location and mild climate.