European Fire Celebrations

Visit to Spain - Tuejar Fallas

The Grundtvig European Fire Celebration partnership continued in March 2008 with four staff and three learners visiting Tuejar near Valencia in Spain to take part in the annual Fallas Celebration.

During our five days in Spain we were taken on a walking tour of the old town, explored the nearby mountains but it was far from just a tourist experience. The people of Tuejar involved us in every aspect of the Fallas which included helping to paint and build the monument to be burned and to create life-sized puppets in National Costume of each of the participating countries in the partnership. These were all burned in a spectacular bonfire with fireworks, traditional food and music – the celebrations went on until the small hours!

Workshops were also held during the week to teach us about traditional Spanish cooking (we now know that you can tell when a paella is ready to eat by smelling the smoke from the fire!) and costumes. One person from each country was lucky enough to be asked to wear the traditional costumes and take part in the traditional flower-giving ceremony at the local church.

Before the visit was over we were taken to Valencia where we visited the Fallas Museum and the Central Agency of the Fallas in Valencia where we saw the most fantastic and creative examples of the models that are made every year, only one of which each year is voted for by the public to be saved from the fire.

We cannot thank everyone in Spain enough for their hospitality and generosity. Having been the only country in the partnership to host a visit so far we know just how much hard work, energy and commitment it has taken to make the week so memorable for us all.

 

The partnership is going from strength to strength and we are looking forward to the next visit to Gistrup near Aalborg in Denmark in June 2009

 

Below is a link to a Spanish web site that has a number of nice images of the visit. Content is in Spanish.