Accompanying Persons Programme

Thursday September 15, 09:30 – 16:30

Paella Workshop and Valencia City Tour

Guests will be collected from the hotel at 9.30h for a master class cookery lesson in how to prepare Spain’s most famous dish – the paella.We will travel to the city centre to meet our chef who will explain how to select the finest ingredients for our dish before we visit Valencia’s famous central market to select our own rice, spices and seafood. After choosing our ingredients we will travel to one of Spain’s finest cookery schools to prepare our dish under expert tuition. Our chef uses light-hearted anecdotes and photographs in what promises to be an entertaining morning. In teams of two or three we will cook our own paella, which will be judged by and round off the morning sampling our own ‘masterpieces’.

After lunch, we will make our way to discover the beautiful city of Valencia.As the provincial capital, Valencia has a rich heritage of historical and artistic points of interest and a unique collection of annual celebrations and traditions. Our bus and walking tour will be led by professional tour guides who will take us to the most interesting and picturesque parts of the city before we return to our hotel at 16:00pm.




Friday September 16, 09:30 – 12:30

Visit of the City of the Arts and the Sciences, Fallero Museum, Albufera Park

The City of the Arts and the Sciences is a great recreational centre for scientific and cultural knowledge. Located in the old Turia Riverbed near the El Saler Motorway, the City of the Arts and the Sciences occupies an area of approximately 350.000 m2. Designed by two internationally respected architects, Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, this
avant-garde architectural masterpiece is destined to be a symbol of the 21st century for Valencia and the entire Valencian Community.

Santiago Calatrava designed the Palau de les Arts - where artistic, musical and theatre performances are held -, L'Hemisferic - with its spectacular shows in the Imax Dome Cinema, Planetarium and Laserium-, the Museu de les Ciències "Príncipe Felipe" - where one can learn about the advances of science and technology in an entertaining way- and the L'Umbracle, a splendid tree and sculpture-lined promenade discretely covering a parking facility with the most impressive views of the complex.

Félix Candela is the creator of the remarkable roofs for the main buildings in the L'Oceanogràfic, an underwater city in which to explore the secrets of the depths. The City of the Arts and the Sciences is the Valencian Regional Government's solid investment in the future, and is the perfect place to have fun while enjoying and learning about art, nature and science.

This well known event in the Valenican calendar began as a feast day to commemorate St Joseph, the patron saint of the city and carpenters. During the Valencia Fallas , which has developed into a five day multifaceted festival celebrating ´fire´, the population swels to three million of flame loving people. In Valenciá (the co-official language of the region of Valencia), Las Fallas mean ´the fires´.

At the heart of the Las Fallas´ celebrations is the creation and destruction of the ninots, statues made of huge cardboard, wood and plaster and located at more than 350 parks, key intersections and other places of interest throughout the city. Crafted by neighbourhood organizations, the lifelike ninots frequently and satirically portray current events and bawdy scenes (Spanish celebrities and lampooning corrupt politicians are especially liked).
They are expensive to make and take about six months to build. Many ninots are several stories tall and cranes are needed to move them into position.
        
The ninots remain in place until St Joseph´s Day, 19th March, when they are burned during “La Cremá.” Young men with axes chop holes into the ninots and put fireworks inside them in the early evening. While the street lights are turned off the spectators chant; then at exactly the stroke of midnight all the ninots are set on fire. Over the years the local firemen have devised unique ways to protect Valencia´s buildings from burning with the ninots. Every year one of the ninots is spared from the flames by the crowds who vote to rescue a favourite to be exhibited in the local ninot museum alongside previous years´ favourites.

One other highlight of Las Fallas is the 2 pm daily "mascletá" held in the Town Hall square, where the ground literally shakes for 10 minutes following the ignition of a huge pile of firecrackers.

Janet Morton, a pyromaniac and traveller mentions that Las Fallas are very difficult to describe as they are intensely cathartic. She says that they are like a mix between the Fourth of July, a bawdy Disneyland and an apocalyptic end of the world.

The Valencia Fallas festival origins are somewhat obscure, though they are thought to come from the evolution of pagan ceremonies to celebrate the onset of Spring and the start of the planting season. An alternative theory from the 1500s links the festival to the city street lights used during the long winter nights and hung from wooden structures or ´parots´. As summer approached and the parots were no longer needed, they were customarily burned on St Joseph´s Day.

Apart from burning the ninots, there are many other activities during the Valencia Fallas festivities, including a wide range of beauty pageants, paella contests, parades and bullfights staged daily throughout the city.

Visitors on their first trip to Valencia may find it hard to understand what exactly a Falla is. Basically, the Fallas can be described as satirical monuments. They are models made from combustible materials (cardboard, wood, etc.) that are erected in public squares and at main crossroads and then burnt on the night of 19 March of every year.