The past few days I have
been in sunny Spain doing research for my International Research Project, which
is like the dissertation part of the BA(Hons) Events Management course.
So we arrived at uni at
2:45am (looking rather tired!) jumped on the coach and headed to Gatwick
Airport where we caught a flight to Alicante. Once we landed, it was back on
the coach for a drive to Valencia!
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Goodbye rainy England!
Hello Sunny Spain!
One of the main things we
went to see out there was a traditional festival where the people of Valencia
build these amazing status to represent all that was bad from the previous year
which are then set alight and burnt so they can start the new year a fresh.
Across the whole of Valencia, there are approximately 756 statues located in
different streets and squares. One statue is saved and placed in a museum,
whilst the others are set alight letting out a great cloud of smoke, immense
heat, fireworks and a rather toxic smell! The burning began at midnight
and went on until around 3 o’clock the next morning. I couldn’t believe how
close to people’s houses and buildings they were as they went up in flames!
Don’t panic, there was a fire truck that went round to each statue to protect
surrounding areas.
Before...
During...
After!
Another part of the festival was the parade, which took
place every day and consisted of each community dressed in traditional
Valencian dress carrying flowers to the Virgin statue in the town centre. A
band also followed each community which made such a good atmosphere!
Whilst we were there, we also got to go to the
oceanographic centre which was an amazing aquarium! We saw so many fish,
penguins, wales and even saw a dolphin show!
 
Whilst in Spain I also tried some amazing Spanish food and
drinks including seafood paella and traditional Valencian paella at a gorgeous
restaurant that had snails and rabbit in it!
 
I think one of my favourite parts of the festival was the
fireworks! They were the biggest displays I have ever seen and they happened
every night in the town centre. However, something I did find very odd was that
people of all ages (even children) were randomly setting these and little fire
crackers off all day so felt like walking through a war zone at times as each
bang made us jump in the air!
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It was such a good trip and I am so lucky to have been given the chance to see an amazing festival! I would defiantly recommend it!
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