Tomato Festival: Media & Press: Thirsty Swagman
.jpg)
Tomato Festival
The tomato festival, known in Spain as "La Tomatina", is an annual event where thousands of participants pack the streets to throw tomatoes at each other for several hours.
Today, 10s of thousands of tourists visit this event every year.
The Tomato festival is held in the Spanish town of Buñol, Valencia. It began in 1944 or 1945, it is however not known for certain how it started. There are several theories including a food fight amongst friends, bystanders throwing tomatoes at a parade and even that town councilmen were attacked with tomatoes by disgruntled locals.
Tomato Festival is held every last Wednesday of August, during a week of festivities in Buñol.
La Tomatina begins at 10am with the first event being the "palo jabón", where the aim is to climb a greasy pole with a ham on top. While some participants attempt this, others sing and dance while being showered in water from hoses.
As soon as someone gets to the ham, a loud shot rings out to mark the official beginning of the chaos – thousands of people now throw tomatoes into the crowd and at each other.
Exactly 1 hour later, the end of festivities is announced with a second shot.
Time to shower :-)
- Tomato Festival (82 kb)
