If you haven’t heard of the La Tomatina Festival, it’s basically a load of people gathered in the one place firing tomatoes at each other. And to answer your next question, yes, it’s great craic.
Yes, food fights are childish and yes, they inevitably end up getting out of hand when a stray spud catches someone in the eye or some over-competitive individual decides to break the rules and hurls live bowls of boiling water across the table, but when it’s all coordinated and adheres to some well-defined and easy to follow rules, it can be good, harmless fun.
Such is the case with La Tomatina Festival, a festival that takes place on the last Wednesday of every August in Bunol, a town located a short spin from Valencia and the Mediterranean coast.
As we’ve hinted at so far, the festival basically consists of locals and tourists gathering together to throw tomatoes at one another, a tradition that dates back to 1945, when, apparently, youths fought police with tomatoes having been prevented from taking part in a parade in the town.
Next year, the same thing happened again only on a larger scale and continued to do so until 1950, when it was allowed, but was then stopped again until 1957, at which point the festival became official with a number of rules that have been slightly modified over the years.
Nowadays, the rules are… there are no rules.
In all seriousness, the rules are few and pretty easy to understand. Put simply, the tomatoes have to be squashed before throwing to avoid injuries. Still following? If not, ketchup.
No other projectiles except tomatoes are allowed, participants have to give way to trucks and lorries, and quite disappointingly, the festival doesn’t allow ripping off T-shirts. Hulk Hogan, you’re not welcome.
The festival starts when a loud shot rings out and all hell breaks loose for an hour, when the end of the festival is hailed with a second shot, after which the throwing of tomatoes is very much frowned upon. Afterwards, fire trucks clean the streets and competitors hose themselves off in an attempt to avoid going around all day smelling like a pizza, particularly if they didn’t wash their feet and happen to be emitting a strong smell of cheese.
The festival goes on for a week and features music, dancing, fireworks and a paella cooking concert and if we haven’t done enough to convince you, then have a look at the video below and start making plans to take a trip to western Spain in a couple of months’ time.
Flexibletrips, Thomas Cook’s dynamic package brand, have a package on offer with return flights to Madrid, two nights in a four star hotel in Madrid and four nights in a four-star hotel in Valencia, which is a half an hour’s train journey away from Bunol, for the very reasonable price of €443 per person.
For more info on Madrid, Valencia and other destinations, visit the Flexibletrips website or call (01) 514 0349
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