Fallas explained to my friends in Europe, and around the world (Part 7)

 17th March late at night (so 18th March already actually)

The honor of closing the first day of the Ofrena belongs to the "Fallera major infantil", this is the girl (around 10, 11 or 12 years old) representing all the children of Valencia for Fallas. This year it was after 2.30 at night when she entered the Plaça de la Mare de Deu. It was long time since this delay was not that big. There was a time when the fireworks didn't start until the Fallera Major Infanitl finished her ofrena, and that could mean waiting until 2 am, which was something unreasonable.

The shape of the Virgin starts having colour and although is not fully covered with flowers, one can have an idea of how this is going to look like. The ofrena will resume on the 18th March around 15h, but we will get there later.

There is some crazyness in this festivity, the falleras and falleros wait for hours to give a bunch of flowers to the Virgin, and this lasts...30 seconds? One minute? Never more than two minutes for sure. But this is what makes this festivity so unique, that regardless being religious or not (as I already mentioned), the event of the Ofrena is the most popular one. The estimations considered that around 65.000 falleras and falleros went to the Plaça de la Mare de Deu on the 17th, which was a number not reached before (maybe this would explain the huge delay).

There are some rules (some written and some non-written) that need to be respected when it comes to the ofrena:

THE WRITTEN RULES

. The first rule is to be on time, if your falla is not on time, the falla will be punished in next year's ofrena (maybe being the first, as no one wants to "open" the Ofrena because there are no flowers yet and the feeling is still a bit cold.

- The second is to respect the maximum number of people per row, usually 5 maximum.

- The third, and obvious one, is that no drinking is allowed or any disrespectful behaviour.

- The head of the falleras -as a sign of respect- must be covered with the mantilla, a piece of cloth carefully made. This may sound old fashioned, but gives an additional feeling of being closer to that what you believe in (or not). See picture below

THE NON-WRITTEN RULES

- Each music band plays "Valencia" when they enter the square. This is something not mandatory, but that became a tradition. Few bands dare to break this rule.

The night will end in the Basílica (church dedicated to this Virgin), with a pray and then outside the regional anthem will be played by the Band of the city of Valencia. You can listen and watch to that moment in below link:

Himne

It is time now to go to bed...or to go dancing to a verbena, or maybe to visit the fallas that you still didn't see, or...who knows? There are hundreds of places to go and things to do.