Foios Patron-Saint Fiestas (Mare de Deu del Patrocini)

For a few days each August, this small l'Horta Nord town hands itself over to its fiestas, and you can simply turn up and join in. The saint's image is carried from the church to the home of that year's festero the day before each feast, then processed back for a noon mass, with rockets fizzing overhead and a band playing the way through the streets. A midday mascletada rattles your chest, and the evenings build to a proper fireworks castle.

What makes it worth the short hop from Valencia is how it's run: different groups of locals, organised by age, each put on their own feast, so the celebrations roll on across several days. Expect open-air paellas and communal dinners, music carrying late into the warm nights, and the easy, slightly chaotic feel of a village doing this for itself rather than for visitors.