Valencia’s strangest ‘fallas’

With Spain’s Las Fallas festival about to kick off in Valencia next week (on the 15th March), we look at some of the event’s strangest figures, which are rendered in papier mache on an enormous scale and painstakingly painted, only to be burnt during this eccentric street party. In past years these have included hippies, tourists and chickens!

Papier mache figures on a tourist bus in Plaza Ayuntamiento during Las Fallas festival 

Papier mache close up of a woman surrounded by cherubs at Torres de Quart during Las Fallas festival (Hugh Rooney/Robert Harding)

Gap-toothed musicians wearing uniforms, sculptures of the Faculty of Drinkers at a parade during Fallas festival (White Star/Jorg Steinert/Robert Harding)

Falla monument of hippies put up during the annual Las Fallas festival in Valencia (Michael Jenner/Robert Harding)

Papier Mache figure of the Statue of Liberty with various other figures flying around her during Las Fallas festival (Hugh Rooney/Robert Harding)

Female Papier Mache figure with a horse on her head in the street during Las Fallas festival (Hugh Rooney/Robert Harding)

Paper mache chickens in the street during Las Fallas festival (Hugh Rooney/Robert Harding)

Papier Mache figure at Torres de Quart, Las Fallas (Hugh Rooney/Robert Harding)

Papier Mache versions of Laurel and Hardy in the street during Las Fallas festival (Hugh Rooney/Robert Harding)

Papier mache figure of young girl in a nurse’s outfit with teddy bear in the street during Las Fallas festival (Hugh Rooney/Robert Harding)

See more images of Las Fallas here