Tomatina: A ‘bloody’ tomatoes festival
La Tomatina food fight festival has become something of a cult festival in Spain. Held on the last Wednesday of August every year in the town of Buñol in the Valencia region of Spain, thousands of people come from all over the world to fight in a battle, in which more than 100 metric tons […]
La Tomatina food fight festival has become something of a cult festival in Spain. Held on the last Wednesday of August every year in the town of Buñol in the Valencia region of Spain, thousands of people come from all over the world to fight in a battle, in which more than 100 metric tons of overripe tomatoes are thrown in the streets.
Think you will gain the advantage from a higher vantage point such as a window ledge, gate or lamp post.
The La Tomatina festival held on the 25th of August, in Bunol, Spain. It does not depend on just the rotten kind. That said, they sure do take throwing tomatoes to an art form.
In fact, pelting is fair game all over the city in the world’s largest tomato fight.
Last year, some 45,000 celebrated in the tiny Valencian village as 100 tons of both rotten and just-too-ripe tomatoes hit revelers as fast as a speeding piece of fruit can fly through the air. This year there’s sure to be more as those who enjoy this kind of fun are arriving in Spain from all over the world.
Still, if you’re there, don’t worry. Everyone is fair game as the throwers became the victims during tomato throwing day.
And everyone has bloody good fun when the annual La Tomatina Festival rolls around in Bunol, Spain where visitors and locals alike are all met with plenty of rotten tomatoes.
“Who left the top off ketchup bottle?” That’s pretty much the spectacle awaiting you at La Tomatina fiesta; the festival which put the little village of Buñol on the map. This might just be the closest you’ll ever get to experiencing face-to-face combat. Oh, and it’s free too. We’ve a low-down of the event, a bit of history, how to get there and suggestions for hostels in Valencia too.
Whether ‘you say tomato and I say tomahto’, no one is safe at this Spanish fiesta of tomato throwing; really just a glorified food fight. Last year 45,000 people descended on the Spanish town of Buñol, which is located about 15 miles outside of Valencia. Battle commences on August 25th, and everybody hurls, dunks and chucks the red fruit at each other. Crazy as it sounds people love rolling about in 125 tons of tomato puree.
Interestingly, it’s all very methodical. Once the lorries have delivered the ammunition, all-out war has run it’s course and the second chupinazo sounds, order is restored once more. Shopkeepers remove the protective tarpaulins and everybody lends a hand in hosing down the streets. In just a few hours the tide of red has disappeared and just a few people – escapees from the set of a bloody horror film, perhaps, are left.
Back in August of 1945, a group of youngsters pushed to the front of the crowd to get a good look at a parade making its way through the village square. One fellow jostling for a good spot fell to the floor and angrily gave everyone around him a jolly good shove. The fight soon spread and before long the crowd began to arm themselves with produce from the nearby market stalls, primarily tomatoes.
The youngsters returned the following year equipped with their own supply of tomatoes. And so the tradition came about. The City Hall of Buñol attempted to ban the festival in the 1950s but by then the village had begun to embrace this yearly moment of childish idiocy. In protest they held a tomato funeral, a procession carrying a coffin with a big tomato inside. Since 1957 the festival has been a legal event and even promoted and organised by City Hall. Bloody-battle-of-tomatina-festival-in-spain.