LA TOMATINA IN BUÑOL

La Tomatina is the world's craziest festival and in 2010, it takes place on Wednesday 25 August.

Thisisvalencia's Tomatina Tour will be back again for another round of tomato-slinging fun Next Summer 2010!

Our day trip includes a return journey on a lovely cool coach, the whole Tomatina in Buñol, a shower and swim to cool and clean off, and a delightful lunch of tapas and Paella (and all the beer and sangria you can drink!) before heading back to Valencia for around 6pm.

The best bits are:

·You can leave your gear on the coach, so can slosh around in tomatoes without a care in the world, safe in the knowledge your things won't get lost, stolen or broken
· We give you a pair of goggles so you don't get nasty bits in your eyes
· The shower and swim on the way home - to get back to the City clean, dry, and tom-free is a luxury, believe us!
· You get to meet a really fun group of people on the bus! (and you get to meet the TIVlc team - always a pleasure!!!)

Our start point is the Plaza del Ayuntamiento at 9am, and we get back to the same place for around 6 in the afternoon. All this, including the goggles and lunch of course! for a special advance price of just 55 euros.

GET ON OUR BUS!

If you want to book a place on our great tour please contact us here asap.

Booking couldn't be simpler! Just drop us an email telling us your name(s), Number in Party, where you are staying the night before and we'll reply with a paypal request for payment asking you for a deposit of 30€ per person- and you are on the bus for a great day out with the tour that gives you more than any other! Places are limited and sell out fast.- info@thisisvalencia.com for more information La Tomatina.

LA TOMATINA 2009
The last La Tomatina, 2009 took place on wednesday 26th August and no less thanthree thisisvalencia coaches went - the party had a whale of a time.

We left the Plaza Ayuntamiento at 0845 and got to Buñol in great time for the fight - a long walk, helped by sangria and a couple of beers down in to the centre of the village to the action.

The cannon was fired at precisely 11am and the fight began - by 12 it's all over and back to the coach having been hosed down on the way (and got a couple more beers) Changed into clean clothes for the journey to Cheste - where hot showers a swim or two, Lunch and a rest in the sun were waiting - then 3 coaches full of sleeping people back to VLC by 6pm

Thisisvalencia.com organizes this and other tours every year - contact us at info@thisisvalencia.com for more information on what we offer.

Click here for a gallery of our 2008 day out and here for our facebook page

La Tomatina
La Tomatina is probably the worlds biggest and certainly the messiest food fight. So when I heard that thisisvalencia.com were organizing a coach trip, I jumped at the chance to go. I have never experienced anything like it in my life, up to 40,000 people crammed into tiny streets. Mental! I mean I've read about it in various guide books, but nothing prepared me for the real thing.

We meet up with the thisisvalencia.com party at 8:45 outside the Palau de Musica for the short coach ride to Buñol and arrived at about 9:30 in the morning.

We followed the crowd down to the town center, which was already heaving. It was like an invading army swarming down into the town, from every street and lane more and more people pilled into the crowd. The more experienced were wearing goggles. I even saw one person wearing a snorkeling mask.

All the buildings were covered in plastic (to protect them from the tomatoes). The locals were all on their balconies and rooftops watching the invaders.

Once we got into the main street things really started to heat up. The only relief from the heat was when one of the locals would throw a bucket of water on us from the safety of their roof. When this happened the crowd started to go mad, chanting Agua, Agua, Agua.

With so many people the buckets of water weren't really sufficient, some people had hooked up hoses and were dousing the crowd, that's when things really took off. Men started ripping off each others camiseta´s (t-shirts) and within minutes a fully fledged tee shirt war was underway. The sodden camisetas became the first weapons of the invaders.

The streets had lights strung across them, because La Tomatina is a week long fiesta. But within 20 minutes each string of lights looked like bunting, with more ripped t-shirts than light bulbs hanging from each string.

The smell of so many people was starting to really fill the air, but it wasn't possible to do anything about it, there was simply nowhere to go. It took my nervous band 15 minutes to move from the center of the road to the pavement. We did this in the vain hope of evading the growing Guerra de Camisetas. After about an hour, we were totally wrapped up in the fight, moving to stand under water when possible and throwing the Camisetas at everything and everybody. (This is strictly against the rules by the way, you are only supposed to throw squashed tomatoes).

Then the cannon sounded, this was the cue for the trucks bearing the tomatoes to fight their way through the crowd. Each truck carried about 25 people on the back of it and about another 10 people hanging onto the sides, trying to climb in. The people in the back of the trucks were throwing great handfuls of tomatoes at everybody they passed, no one was safe.

The crowd went wild, the ground was covered in slippery tomato puree and people were picking up great big handfuls and chucking at first nervously at the people they knew, but by the time the second truck arrived, it turned into every man for himself.

By the time the third truck arrived, we were standing in tomatoes up to our shins. People splashed it with there feet, picking it off their bodies, clothes, heads, other peoples backs and chucked it indiscriminately at everybody and everything.

As soon as the second cannon shot sounded people stopped, we were now barely able to stand. The crowd fell silent for about a minute and slowly the noise started to build as friends separated in the fighting met up and began to laugh at the ripped clothes and tomato covered people all around them. Some people lay down on the road reluctant to leave.

As we made our way back to the bus things fell silent again. Somebody stopped us to take a picture of us. I was drained, dazed dumfounded at what had just happened. I would have believed it was a dream if it wasn't for the tomato juice running down from my face and the tomatoes under my feet in my shoes squelching between my toes with each step.

I am looking forward to the next thisisvalencia.com outing. It is a good way to see the best that the Valencia region has to offer. Organized by people who know the region and all the great festivals.
Siobhan

BLOODY GOOD FUN
It was hard to believe there were going to be any tomatoes at all. The main street was rammed with muchachos and chicas, buzzing while they waited for battle, chanting 
“Ag-ua!” to provoke the residents on the roofs, then “To-ma-te”, and of course the song “O-le, ole, ole, ole...”, as twelve o’clock approached. The crowd were strictly eighteen to thirty, thirty-five max down Calle de la Pueblo, the main road where the tomato fight was about to take place, wearing goggles round their necks, and clothes they were prepared to ruin. It was an international crowd, but the local boys were recognisable by their carefully sliced T-shirts, (think Morten Harket) and the chanting they intitiated. The careful nicks made earlier in the shirts of those that knew, grew in the water-sogged wait until the T-shirt became a soggy ball to be hurled around the crowd, or was torn and fashioned into a bandana and missile twinset. We crept further into the crowd. We hurled wet T-shirts when they came our way. In some pockets of crowd the throwing got quite over-excited. I kept my own clothes on - it was a men’s thing.

How else could it begin? Yup, a big bang, a classic Valenciano mascleta sounded 12 o’clock. Bless the tourist near me who jumped out of his skin and said breathlessly, “What was that?” (It’s always worth remembering that some of those Antipodeans haven’t seen fireworks for years. They’re illegal in New Zealand. Imagine, Fallas veterans.) We were all uncertain as to what to expect, though. There had been talk of trucks of tomatoes, but I just couldn’t see how that was possible. The crowd was too solid for that. Then someone said they would funnel themfrom the roofs. This seemed to be confirmed when, after that first bang signalled it was time to start, the water throwers on the roofs turned into tomato throwers. No funnels, just single handed hurling. I thought I’d never get my hands on one. Those media images that appear everywhere every silly season didn’t seem possible.

Then, the first truck chugged into sight. It was a huge tip up truck, full of plum tomatoes, with about twenty grinning men hurling tomatoes into the crowd. A couple of people on board were wearing masks, adding to the weirdness of the festival. Was that Jesus, or Ossama Bin Laden? The truck came slowly down the main street, and although it had seemed there was no way it could possibly get through, it did, leaving more room, and plenty of tomatoes in its wake.

When the second tomato truck came through, it tipped up just where we were standing. This was when we got abundance. I was up to my knees in them, bending down into the slush, standing up with full handfuls of red slushy hand grenades, pelting them any old which way. After a few seconds it was impossible to see anything through my goggles. I would wipe them away, get a sense of what was happening around me, then get covered again. A plum tomato can have a fair impact on your head, it can dislodge a goggle, but I don’t think they leave any lasting scars. And, the beauty of it is, even a girl can make them go quite far! I could throw! Delirious! Happiness! The sounds I can remember are the sounds I made: shouting at the men on the truck, screaming with delight as I lost my footing, but realised I wouldn’t get swept under the wheels, and that I was safe; hysterical giggling, the smacking of lips because you can’t help licking away that sweet and sickly flavour.... What an adrenalin rush.

A third truck came by, depositing fresh ammo on top of the now ankle deep gaspacho soup. It was at about this stage when all the floating flip-flops apppeared.

Wet T-shirts were no longer being thrown and instead they floated in the swamp. Reaching down you got the choice of T-shirt, flip-flop or tomato. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes...

You know those rooms full of balls that shopping centres sometimes have as a play area for kids? Well, in the thick of the Tomatina, you get the feeling you’re supposed to get in one of those play pens. The idea that they intimate but fail to create. The point is to flail about, gurgling with happiness, like a baby. To submerge yourself, then fling frantically amongst those bare-chested tomato-lubricated hunks.

It’s a drug rush. It’s quite delicious, good humoured, hilarious, eccentric fun.

The story as to how it started, is that a fight broke out down the street many years ago. The protagonists grabbed tomatoes from a stall and began pelting them at each other, and everyone around soon joined in. The story goes, they had so much fun, they decided to do the same every year...

How Utopian is that? Is it just me, or does that sound like a society that’s getting a few things right? After the fourth truck we made our way out of the crowd. People were helping each other get something out of sogged cigarettes and dead lighters. I realised my mobile had gone to tomato hell and would vibrate itself to death. The pictures of the tomato throwing crowd are media favourites all over the world. Yet there is no sniffof a sponsor anywhere. There’s barely any recognition of an opportunity to sell: hotel owners very kindly held on to rucksacks for visitors for no charge, the high quality boccadillos and beers were served at every day prices. Just as a big bang signals the beginning, it tells the crowd when to stop. And they do. And on the walk to the station and on the train home, (which smells quite disgusting), the people that came in flip-flops are now wearing one of their own, and one of someone else’s. Or are those two that are new to those feet, united in the haphazard aftermath of a stream of tomatoes?

ABLE
this article originally appeared in 24/7Valencia magazine

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LA TOMATINA
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT HERE

LA POBLA DEL DUC - RAIMÀ GRAPE FESTIVAL- 28 AUGUST

CAN'T MAKE IT FOR LA TOMATINA? YOU MAY WANT TO TRY CHUCKING GRAPES AROUND - 40 TONS OF THEM(!) AT THIS RIVAL TO BUÑOL'S MADNESS. AT 12 MIDDAY FOR AN HOUR OF FRENZIED AND VERY SWEET BATTLE. THE GRAPE YOU WILL BE CHUCKING IS THE GARNACHA TINTORERA. INTERESTED IN VISITING LA POBLA DEL DUC FOR THIS FIESTA? CONTACT US HERE

LA TOMATINA
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

It has to be said that the Spanish may sound like lawless funsters who disobey all the rules but the reason that La Tomatina and other fiestas in Spain are fun and relatively accident free is that they do in fact respect the rules.

La Tomatina lasts for exactly one hour from the cannon shot, once the Ham has been won from the 'Soap Pole'. It ends with another cannon. The Spanish rarely continue after the cannon.

The Organisers tell you to squash tomatoes prior to hurling them, They can really hurt if they hit you, whole, in the face.

T-shirts must never be knotted and thrown, a wet t-shirt with a knot in can do serious damage.

Ladies, do wear a bather under your t-shirt or top, you will more than likely lose your top during the battle...

Never take valuables or passports into the fray - there is a serious amount of pickpocketing at La Tomatina each year - make sure, if you are on a coach, that they will look after your belongings while you battle. Or leave your things for a few euros with one of the villagers offering the service on the way into the village.

Oh, and bring a change of clothes, and if you are on our tour, bring your swimmers

RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FROM THE ORGANISERS OF LA TOMATINA

These are virtually verbatim from their copy, we've changed a bit of spelling and grammar, but 'tip for enjoyment' number four is classic,
so we left it unchanged.

RULES

The City Hall of Buñol has prepared a list of rules which will ensure that the Tomatina remains a celebration. These simple rules of civic responsibility and cohabitation are important for the festival to develop as usual, without any problem:

· You must not bring bottles or other type of objects which could cause an accident.

· You must not break(knot) or throw T-shirts.

· The tomatos must be squashed before throwing them, to avoid hurting people.

· You must be careful of any lorry.

· When you hear the second shot, you must stop throwing tomatos.

TIPS FOR ENJOYMENT

ONE
Do not wear flip-flops, wear old sports shoes

TWO
Do not wear clothes that you want to wear again in the future, it is likely they will be ruined.

THREE
Goggles are very practical, because the tomatos cause itchiness in the eyes. (Later, your skin will be very smooth due to the tomatoes.)

FOUR
Enjoy it the most. It is great to be able to do something as nonsense as throwing tomatoes to anyone moving for an hour. You can relieve all your tightness. We should celebrate it more often.

FIVE
If you want to take pictures, you need an underwater waterproof camera.

SIX
Do not bring a video camera.

SEVEN
Never, and we mean never, climb on a gate, window, wall, etc. to be able to watch the battle, you will became the target of 40,000 people.

EIGHT
Don't miss the ‘soap-post’ a pole rubbed in soap with a ham leg hanging at the top. If you can reach the top, the ham leg is yours.