The Matt Faus Blog

After the bullfight we went down to the beach, with the rest of Valencia, to celebrate the Fiesta de San Juan. I have never seen so many people on a beach before in my life. There were literally thousands of people packed everywhere. Party of the festival is to write your sins on a piece of paper and then to throw them into a fire as a symbol of purifying your soul, so on this night everywhere is allowed to build a fire on the beach. On top of the hundreds of fires, thousands of people, all kinds of food and drink vendors, there was a huge stage setup near the southern end of the beach that was pumping out dance music that could be heard across Mediterranean until the wee hours in the morning. Looking down the northern shore you could see fireworks and festivities going on along the entire length of the beach. It truly felt like we were celebrating with the entire nation of Spain.