Bunol, a small Spanish town home to many lush parks and a beautiful old town, is famous around the world for a single one-hour event.
Today, August 28, marked the annual La Tomatina festival in Bunol, as the small town welcomed around 22,000 tourists for an hour of tomato-throwing.
Every year, tens of thousands of people from around the world descend on the quiet town along Spain’s eastern coast, which lies just 38 kilometres from Valencia.
The event, which kicked off at around 11am, saw participants throw tomatoes at each other in what is known as the world’s biggest food fight.
In the lead-up to this morning’s festivities, seven huge trucks delivered more than 150,000 kilos of specially prepared tomatoes for the event, which always takes place on the last Wednesday in August.
However, for all the excitement, the food fight, which costs €15 (£12.60) to attend, only lasts an hour, with no more tomatoes allowed to be thrown after 12pm.
Officials are keen to stress, amid concerns of food waste, that the tomatoes are perfect for pelting one another and are not suitable for consumption.
Ahead of today’s event, councilman Sergio Galarza said: “There is a lot of excitement and also a lot of respect because there are many people on the route, as this year will feature seven trucks. We hope that the party goes smoothly and that at 2pm we can clean up and everyone is happy.”
The town deploys fire trucks to spray down the tomato-ridden streets in a lengthy cleaning process.
Bunol has a normal population of around 9,500 residents – but this more than doubles on the day of the event. It is unclear how many of the residents take part in the Tomatina, but tickets for the festival are capped at around 22,000 people.
The town had to implement a ticketing system in 2013 due to the strain the festival had placed on it.
Prior to 2013, more than 40,000 people crammed into the town for this huge tomato fight, with around 50,000 people reportedly attending in 2012.
La Tomatina has been held in the small Valencian village since 1945. As legend goes, a group of youths attending a local parade started to fight and used tomatoes from a nearby fruit and vegetable stall to throw at one another.
While police eventually broke up this first Tomatina, the young people of Bunol repeated the event the following year.
The town council officially banned the event in the 1950s – but many young residents ignored these orders and held food fights regardless.
The council eventually re-authorised the festival in 1957. Since the 1980s, the town council itself has purchased the tomatoes to be used in the event.
La Tomatina was suspended in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
