The Fallas fiesta takes place in Valencia from 15th to the 19th of March every year. It is a festival which attracts many foreign visitors as well as Spanish tourists from all over the country. It started in the Middle Ages when carpenters used to hang up planks of wood called ‘parots’ in the winter to support their candles when they were working. At spring these pieces of wood would be burned as a way of celebrating the end of dark, winter working days. After a while they began to put clothing on the ‘parot’ and then started to try to make it identifiable with a well-known local personality. These became the forerunners of the contemporary ‘ninots’, the enormous cardboard, wooden, plaster and papier maché figures of today. In the ‘Ciutat Fallera’ whole groups of workers and designers spend months creating all the incredible figures, the ‘ninots’, which are placed at key places throughout the city. Each day begins with ‘La Despertà’ at 8am with firecrackers. And in the last day, ‘La Nit de Foc’ the enormous creations are destroyed.