Sagunto's Falleres Majors spend a week of twinning celebrations in Cecina
Empar Ríos and Maria Pozuelo, Sagunto's Falleres Majors (Falles festival queens), led a delegation of the Falles federation on a 6-13 September trip to Cecina, the Italian city twinned with Sagunto.
A delegation from Sagunto's Falles federation, the Federació Junta Fallera de Sagunt (FJFS), led by Falleres Majors Empar Ríos and Maria Pozuelo, strengthened twinning ties with the Italian city of Cecina during a week centred on festivities, culture and shared traditions. The Sagunto representatives took part between 6 and 13 September in the 65th edition of the Targa Cecina festival, accompanied by FJFS executive president Aitor Muñoz and Remei Torrent, vice-president for twinning, international relations and inclusion.
The Sagunto delegation joined the traditional carriage parade from day one, one of the festival's key events. During their stay they also visited other parts of Tuscany, including Volterra, and took part in activities with the Rione Stazione (one of Cecina's traditional festival districts) to learn about local heritage, culture and traditions.
The Falleres Majors also reunited with the Cecina delegation that had visited Sagunto during the 2026 Falles festival. Shared activities included decorating one of the cakes representing each Rione, time spent with the Rione Palazzaccio, and the final of the petanca tournament. The group also visited a Palazzo, where they saw a classic car exhibition and sampled local produce.
In the second half of the stay, the delegation visited an olive oil cooperative with the Rione Campaciocchion, learning the production process and tasting local flavours, and joined the Rione Marina for the traditional Balletti dances. The programme also included a visit to Radio Stop, an Etruscan remains museum, and the town of Bolgheri. Valencian cuisine featured too, with the Sagunto delegation taking part in preparing a paella.
In the final days, the FJFS delegation welcomed runners from the 41st Mini-Targa Cecina and 65th Targa Cecina races, sharing the commemorative Targa Cecina 2026 cake at the lunch that followed. One new feature this year was an official reception at Cecina's newly renovated town hall, which the delegation attended together with two representatives of the festival's children's group.
The twinning between Sagunto and Cecina fits into a broader tradition of exchanges between Falles-celebrating cities and towns in other countries, designed to showcase beyond the Valencian Community a festival -the Falles- that forms a central part of the town's cultural identity for much of the year, not only in March. The Federació Junta Fallera de Sagunt coordinates dozens of Falles committees every year, spread across the historic centre and Puerto de Sagunto, each with its own child and adult Falleres Majors and activities that extend well beyond the main festival week, including precisely this kind of international exchange.
For the town, keeping the Cecina twinning alive also offers a route to tourism and cultural exposure, alongside other Falles landmarks such as the Cabalgata del Ninot parade or the Ofrena floral offering. The delegation that travels to Italy each year, and the one Cecina sends to Sagunto during the Falles, act as informal ambassadors for both towns, showcasing very different traditions -Tuscan floats and Rione districts versus Valencia's papier-mache Falles monuments and fireworks- that nonetheless share the same spirit of a popular festival organised around neighbourhoods or districts. That parallel, often highlighted by FJFS representatives themselves, is one of the arguments behind a twinning relationship that has already run for several consecutive years and that both sides have said they want to keep going in years to come.
The FJFS has said it is already working on organising Cecina's next delegation trip to Sagunto, planned for the 2027 Falles, with both towns hoping to keep strengthening a bond that has become a fixed date on both towns' festive calendars.
Sagunto's Falles committees will also keep sharing day-to-day updates from trips like this one on social media, the usual way they bring these experiences closer to residents who cannot join the delegation.
Cecina, the Italian town twinned with Sagunto through the FJFS, lies in the province of Livorno, in the Tuscany region, and has a population of 28,126, giving a sense of the scale of the city that hosts and visits Sagunto's Falles representatives each year. The trip continued the exchange between two twinned cities whose relationship centres on shared festive traditions and community participation. According to the Federació Junta Fallera de Sagunt, with additional background from Wikipedia.