Attended this two years ago and it was one of the better FT weekends, and a splendid event to experience period. Lots to see in Valencia, I spent two days exploring the galleries and museums, in addition to the group activities we did with other FTers.

Stayed at the Holiday Inn across from the Melia, a modern hotel well appointed and quite affordable for a peak festival period. Checked the IC website and rooms are still available at E89 corporate and E119 regular for this weekend. Tempting. Also checked Destina.ca which is Air Canada's online TA. Although it did show both Sol Melia properties, when requested both were not available. And the HI came up at C$280 a night!

Best way, unless you rent a car -- which isn't really needed in Valencia -- is to fly to Madrid and catch a Rapido train down to Valencia, about three hours if I recall. Trains depart from the southside Atocia station, which is where the bombings occured. For intercity trains, you must go through airport like security, your bags are checked, and this occured even before that unfortunate event. That's why they went after commuter trains, which would be impossible to secure in the same fashion. [You can also fly, but it is more expensive.]

However, as Techgirl discovered, you need to book your train in advance. She arrived in MAD on Friday and could not get a train seat [I think that was the story]. There was a RR ticket office at the airport, so I booked and purchased my seat there on Thursday when I arrived, then overnighted in Madrid and caught a morning train into Valencia. Most trains were fully booked, so I was lucky to snag a seat. [Trains are fast, comfortable, and feature music and movies.]

Madrid can be expensive for decent hotels, so this is a place to use awards if you have Starwood or Priority Club accounts. And in both cases, these are high end properties and thus costly awards. There are not many of the major chains represented in Spain, other than HIs and Best Westerns.

For those not familiar with this Festival, it revolves around nightly fireworks displays that attract the best "artists" in this unique field. Each midnight for a week, a major display is set off. During the day, one tours the various neighbourhoods, all of which have little squares where huge paper machée characatures have been built. At the end of the festival these are turned into huge bon fires. There is also a major "cracker" event at City Hall square on Saturday afternoon. Great restaurants to pass the evening in, then head off to the dried river for the big show. But do watch out for little children who delight in throwing firecrackers at passers by.

Highly recommended event, FT or no.

Also, if looking for a relatively cheap flight from NAmerica, remember the annual SAS Christmas sale, when a different European destination is on offer for about US$250+ taxes from EWR or IAD, or US$300 from ORD or SEA. MAD is one of the destinations on offer, and I booked this promo when attending the first FT Las Fallas gathering.