{"id":2757,"date":"2011-09-28T09:45:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T08:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/?p=2757"},"modified":"2013-09-27T12:26:56","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T11:26:56","slug":"events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Events in Valencia: Mocador\u00e0, the festival of love and freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The day of the &#8216;Comunidad Valenciana\u201d, October 9, is also the day of Saint Dionysius, traditionally considered as the patron saint for lovers: this is the <strong>Mocador\u00e0<\/strong>, the festival of love and freedom. The origins of this tradition date back to when in 1238 there was the expulsion of the Muslim empire from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.traveleurope.com\/spain\/valencia.php\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Valencia<\/strong><\/a> by Jaime I &#8220;The Conqueror&#8221;. During the take-over of the city, the conquered &#8220;Moors&#8221; offered fruits and vegetables as a gift to James I\u2019s wife, wrapped in rustic rustic napkins. A century later, in 1338, the commemoration of the event was converted into an annual festival.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The true tradition of &#8220;mocadorada&#8221;, which has reached our days, dates to after the War of Succession, when Philip V forbade the celebration of the entry of King James I in the city of Valencia. To circumvent the prohibition, confectioners began making handcrafted marzipan pastries representing dried fruit and vegetables, as well as the fireworks that were used for the festivities later prohibited. These were peculiar fireworks called &#8220;<em>Tronador<\/em>&#8221; and &#8220;<em>Piuleta<\/em>&#8221; in Valencia, which by their phallic or round shape resembled male and female sexual organs.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, the Valencian name referring to the napkin, that is, mocador, gave its name to this tradition. Since October 9, in Valencia, is also the day which celebrates the patron saint of Valencian lovers, it is a tradition for men to give their sweethearts<strong> gifts of marzipan sweets<\/strong> wrapped in a napkin (the Valencian mocador).<\/p>\n<p>For Valencians , the <strong>9th October <\/strong>is the <strong>Day of the Valencian Community<\/strong>, but also the day for lovers \u2013 it\u2019s their special Valentine&#8217;s Day. It is also tradition for women to keep all the scarfs donated to them year after year since they started &#8220;going out&#8221; with their gentleman.<\/p>\n<p>This is how the art of pastry joins history and tradition coming together as a frame to the noblest of feelings: love. The Mocador\u00e0 is not only a national holiday, nor a second order Valentine&#8217;s Day. It is an event full of symbolic meaning that perhaps only the locals can fully understand, but it is certainly a particular event that those who come to Valencia in October should not absolutely miss!<\/p>\n<p>Photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/josef_tuerk\/4823243766\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Josef T\u00fcrk Reit im Winkl Chiemgau<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Mocador\u00e0 is an event full of symbolic meaning that perhaps only the locals can fully understand, but it is certainly a particular event that those who come to Valencia in October should not absolutely miss! It is a tradition for men to give their sweethearts gifts of marzipan sweets wrapped in a napkin (the Valencian mocador)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471],"tags":[552,522],"class_list":["post-2757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-festival","tag-folklore","tag-valencia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Events in Valencia: Mocador\u00e0, the festival of love and freedom - Traveleurope Blog | Travel tips, advices and useful info<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Events in Valencia: Mocador\u00e0, the festival of love and freedom - Traveleurope Blog | Travel tips, advices and useful info\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Mocador\u00e0 is an event full of symbolic meaning that perhaps only the locals can fully understand, but it is certainly a particular event that those who come to Valencia in October should not absolutely miss! It is a tradition for men to give their sweethearts gifts of marzipan sweets wrapped in a napkin (the Valencian mocador)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Traveleurope Blog | Travel tips, advices and useful info\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TraveleuropeEN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gu3rri3ro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-28T08:45:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-09-27T11:26:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/valencia-love.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"375\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andrea Guerriero\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/GuerrieroAndrea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@TraveleuropeEN\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andrea Guerriero\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Andrea Guerriero\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/dd087acfb0bcbc983eba2e2602660234\"},\"headline\":\"Events in Valencia: Mocador\u00e0, the festival of love and freedom\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-09-28T08:45:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-09-27T11:26:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/\"},\"wordCount\":378,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/valencia-love.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"folklore\",\"valencia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Festival\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.traveleurope.com\/en\/events-in-valencia-mocadora-the-festival-of-love-and-freedom\/\",\"name\":\"Events in Valencia: Mocador\u00e0, the festival of love and freedom - 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