The Daily Sketch: Norms gather in Valencia for Las Fallas

While I’ve been off in Marbella, the Norms have been heading in their blobby white multitudes to the Spanish city of Valencia, where the magnificent festival of Las Fallas is fast approaching. Amongst the huge papier-maché floats, and giant-sized street-paellas, the Norm men and women of the town are to be found parading the streets and squares of the historic quarter in their finery, the women in traditional dresses of exquisite floral detail, together with an elegant head-dresses and jewels aplenty, while for the men, a headscarf bandana, a waistcoat and occasionally even a sword is a throwback to the time of the great Norm-cavaliers.

Norms gather in Valencia for Las Fallas (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Here we see the Norms perambulating in the magnificent Plaza de la Virgen against the equally splendid backdrop offered by the city’s architecturally heterogenous Cathedral. Dazzling in their elegance, with their large skirts swishing along the marble paving and jewels twinkling in the Valencian sunlight, these Norms are like a snapshot from history, a carefully preserved Valencian tradition which brings the city’s past to life in a dazzling street spectacle every March.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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