The Virgen de los Desamparados de Valencia begins to wear the traditional cloak of flowers that the more than 100,000 falleros called to participate in the Offering have begun to weave this Friday with bouquets of carnations and, for the first time in history, also daisies.
The first of the two days of floral offerings to the Virgin, now without any restrictions due to Covid or due to works in the city center, takes place without inclement weather and with a temperature of around 18 degrees.
In these intense days of festive procession, but also religious, which usually end after midnight, the more than 380 Fallas commissions from Valencia parade for several kilometers towards the Plaza de la Virgen to place their bouquets in front of the 15-meter-high wooden catafalque. height located between the Basilica and the Cathedral and ask for the blessing of its patron saint.
It is one of the acts most anticipated by the members of the Fallas commissions and also by the hundreds of supporters who join the party solely to participate in this act.
It is common to see entire families, from newborn children or those who arrive in strollers carried by their relatives to the elderly, for whom the journey is a great effort. Emotion appears on all faces, like tears in their eyes, as soon as they see the Virgin in the distance.
Each one of the bouquets that the falleros deposit at the feet of the Virgin is collected by the specialized group of 'dressing rooms' that, perched on the wooden structure -and protected by a safety harness for the second year- make up the colorful and fragrant cloak of the 'Geperudeta', affectionate epithet with which this virgin is known due to the inclination of her neck.
This year the Offering recovers a volume of falleros that is higher than the figures for 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, when the census was reduced to 88,685, but it also exceeds the 99,756 of the year before the covid and the 94,136 of 2017.
The Guild of Florist Artisans of Valencia expects that between 95,000 and 100,000 bouquets will be deposited since "the devotion in Valencia is such that even some male falleros begin to take bouquets to the Virgin", recently pointed out from this entity.
Another of the peculiarities of this year's Offering is that the cloak, unlike other occasions, will be almost all white, with the exception of some red borders, and for the first time it will also be made up of daisies, due to the drop in production of carnations due to the recent cold waves.
The possibility of inverting the colors of the cloak was studied, that is, making it mostly red with white details, but the Fallas commissions had already made their orders, so it was decided to combine the scarce white carnation with a type of daisy. , the euro, very similar to this flower as it lacks a central button.
The only consequence, the specialists explain, is that probably in a few days you will notice the difference in tones in the white flowers.
