Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Valencia's fiestas in celebration of its patron saint, San José, Saint Joseph, are an enormous firework festival held from March 15 to 19 every year. The mascletas are tremendous riots of rockets, firecrackers and other fireworks, held at 2 in the afternoon, just before Spanish lunchtime. What is the point of fireworks in daylight? I hear you wonder, and the answer is noise. Loudness is so highly considered that pregnant women are not supposed to attend the mascletas. The parades with their ninots, giant, satirical, papier-mâché (nowadays polyethylene) sculptures up to 20 feet tall, are less hard on the nerves, though there is a certain tragedy about their almost inevitable end, sacrificed to the flames on the last night, only one being reprieved and preserved for prosperity in the Museo Fallero. The link goes to the festival's officia website, Spanish-only except for a brief history of the fallas available by clicking one of the national flags at the bottom of the page.