Painting the Town Red
This phrase becomes literal during Buñol, Spain’s La Tomatina. You see, it all began in 1945, when a group of rowdy youngsters taunted parade participants one hot summer day. One of the ‘giants’ on stilts took a tumble because of the debauchery. He then proceeded to get up and start roughing up the teens. A massive rumble in the village square ensued and luckily for La Tomatina, a nearby fruit stand became an armory as people launched fruits and veggies at anybody standing in their way. Though it was stopped by officials, a group of young people gathered again the following year, and then the year after that, and so on. Officers continued to put a halt to the nonsense until it became the official Day of the Tomato, or La Tomatina, several years later.
Each year on the last Wednesday of August, an upwards of 30,000 people from Buñol, Germany, UK, France, US, and South America wait on the cobble streets for the spirited food fight to begin. Residences hose down the crowd with buckets of water thrown from the balconies above. Soon after carts full of about 100,000 kilos of tomatoes are wheeled in (squashed mind you to avoid tomato pelting injuries) and the crowd goes at it. Afterwards, the crowd is ushered out to wash the food off their faces while the locals rush in and have the whole shebang cleaned up in an hour.
The town is a very small one so your best bet is to shack up in nearby Valencia, which is about a ½ hours ride away from Buñol on the RENFE rail system.
- 2 Star: Hostal Venecia
- 3 Star: Catalonia Excelsior
- 4 Star: Vincci Palace
- 5 Star: Eurostars Gran Valencia