The last Wednesday of August as every year, one of the most popular parties of Spain, the Tomatina is celebrated. Nestled within a Buñol‘s festivities week, a municipality of Valencia, the festival consists on throw tomatoes at each other, as your can see in this Tomatina video.
Throughout the day, various events are held such as “palo jabón” (soap stick) similar to the greasy pole. The goal is to climb a greased pole with a ham on top. Around 11 am and for an hour, the most awaited festival is celebrated, after appearing several trucks with 120 tons of tomatoes that will dyed red to more than 40,000 people from several countries.
There are several rules when throwing the tomatoes: you must squash the tomatoes before throwing them as this reduces the impact, do not rip other people’s T-shirts, it is forbidden to carry bottles and hard objects that may cause damage and is highly recommended that participants wear old clothes and diving masks, as the tomato’s acid is itchy. After the war of tomatoes, the town is bathed in a huge Red River, but after cleaning in just a few minutes, the Buñol streets are spotless.
It is such a famous festivity that has inspired similar celebrations in other parts of the world as Sutamarchán, a village in Colombia, San Jose Trojas in Costa Rica, in Reno, a town in Nevada and even in China, in a place called Dongguan.
This party is so popular that the video game company Namco included in the 6th installment of the saga Tekken fighting game, a scenario that mimics the Tomatina buñolense, it also appears in a Bollywood movie called “You only live once” and currently, the town of Buñol has several proposals to appear in more film productions, this time in the Indian industry of Mollywood.
Tags: bollywood, buñol, festivity, guide, party, spain, spain travel guide, valencia
