Valencians celebrating but not partying

When Valencians celebrate, they like to drink a lot of wine and make a lot of noise. In particular, they enjoy letting off fireworks – not necessarily the ones that fly up into the air and explode in joyful colours, but often the ones that just make a massive noise, at which they express hilarious delight while anyone trying to sleep nearby expresses bitter resentment.

It's as though living in their charming and pretty city leaves Valencians hankering for the challenges and excitement of a war zone.

So the procession in honour of St Vincent Ferrer, one of the city’s patron saints, was a curious anomaly which was all the more worth seeing for that very reason.

It was much more solemn. Quiet even. People genuinely processed, they didn’t sing or dance let alone drink. There weren’t that many of them, even, possibly a testimony to the fact that religious observance, even in Catholic Valencia, is not quite as widespread as one might imagine. And maybe also that spiritual events tend to be predominantly patronised by the wealthy, a suspicion rather underlined by the quality of the clothes many of the participants were wearing.

Still, it was fun.

Horsemen. Or, more correctly, horsepersons

At the front of the procession were a couple of horsemen, though one of them, in fact, was a horsewoman.

He deserves the honour. Or was he just working?

Immediately behind came a member of a crucial band in Valencia: a street cleaner. I’m not saying that you could eat a meal off the city’s streets – not, at least, safely, and I don’t just mean because of the traffic – but they are busily swept and scraped by devoted hordes of cleaners on every working day and quite a few holidays too.

Seeing a street cleaner near the front of the procession struck me as an appropriate honour. Though I think it would honour these valuable people still more if Valencia’s dog owners made more of a point of cleaning up behind their dogs – certainly, our local cleaner, a lovely lady called Marian, complains of how little they seem to care and how quickly they allow their pets to foul the pavements after she’s passed by.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the cleaner wasn’t there to be honoured. He may just have been tasked with clearing up behind the horses.

The costumes were mostly sober black.

Sombre in black, but spritely with it. Great to be that fit at that age

Even black, though, isn’t bleak if you’re young enough.

On some people, black's not so dismal

In any case, many were in traditional dress which was far more colourful.

Traditional dress

Sometimes they came in larger groups, too, to underline the principle that celebrating a saint needn’t be a dire business.

Traditional dress, massed

Why, we even saw a group of what were apparently young Dominicans. Accompanied, it would seem, by minders, though I’m not quite sure why they needed them.

Young friars. Or novices. Apparently

And, of course, where the national religion goes, the national military can never be far behind: the more senior clerics duly escorted by armed men.

Goose-stepping along
Neatly confirming the link between Church and State

More senior representatives of both the military and police were there too, though apparently unarmed. The top brass doesn’t do the dirty work: it has far more junior and less well-paid underlings to do it for them.

The senior officers were there too
All branches of the services and the police were represented

Away from the procession itself, there were stages set up on street corners, where children under 13 were performing miracle plays.

Street theatre miracle plays. By children

The celebration gave us an unexpected view of a certain section of Valencian society. And an interesting contrast to the way most festivities take place in this city. 

It was amusing, and a little surprising, to see Valencians engaging in a celebration without turning it into a party.