La Tomatina in Bunol - Spain

Does anyone know when this is going to happen this year? It's supposed to be the last Wednesday in August, but I heard that it's actually going to happen on the 22nd (fourth Wednesday in August).

Can anyone confirm ??

For those of you wandering what La Tomanina is, it's the famous tomato fight that happens in the city of Bunol, Spain every year. I can't wait !

[ 07-27-2001: Message edited by: MadridMan ]

Actually, as far as I know it's the first week of August if I remember correctly. Good luck!

The name is TomaTina (like tomato).

In this link, they say it is in the last week of August. http://www3.gvsu.edu/wcb/schools/GV/mod/lambj/4/forums/forum2/messages/103.html

Here, they are more concrete,the last wednesday of August, 11 a.m.:
http://www.encis.es/idus/tomatina.htm

For other details:
http://www.lahoya.net/tomatina/menues.html

This is one festival I have to attend before I die. Where else in the world can you stand knee deep in tomato juice, and throw a ripe one at someone? Talk about a good way to release hostilities, it don't get better than that!

Of course I'd be tempted to wring my clothes out when I get home to make a marinara sauce...

Anyone? How do you get tomato stains out of clothes?

Wolf (Warming up his pitching arm for the 2002 La TomaTina if he can make it there.. )

[ 07-27-2001: Message edited by: Wolfgang81 ]

Wolf:

You can still reach Tomatina'01 in August.

Thanks for the info and links. I'll be in Madrid and will probably have to drive to Bunol early in the morning on the day it starts. Does anyone know how far it is from Madrid and what the drive time is more or less ?

I asked my mates at work, and they don't know the village, even though they have gone many times that way to reach the coast. But, considering that Valencia is about 400 Km. from Madrid, Buñol should be about 250 to 300Km.. Which means about 3 hours trip (more that day maybe, because of the feast).

You could go faster, because it is a motorway, but it is dangerous if you go real fast, there are a lot of accidents (some with death victims) because of going faster of 100 Km/hour ¿60 miles/hour? For a person who doesn't know the road, I would recommend a lower speed.

This is what they say in Geoplaneta

Tiempo total: 03:05:17 h
Distancia total: 326.9 km

There, you can select "ruta más corta" or "ruta más rápida", they will show you a schedule with maps.

Wolf- I got your back, and I hear you. I must do that before I croak, too.

According to Almodóvar, in order to get those tough stains out (including blood and guts, use "Ecce Homo" detergent. If you haven't seen "Women on the Verge..." you'll think I've lost it. If you have, then you "lost it" during that scene. Quite possibly the best commercial never to air on TVE.

CaliBasco [who wouldn't mind standing knee-deep in V8 with anyone on this board]

[ 07-30-2001: Message edited by: CaliBasco ]

In spite of the information offered here, taken from links of Buñuel area websites, the Tomatina has been held 22nd August.

My sincere apologies for sending links to misinformed pages (no matter they were patronaged by the Buñol town council).

30.000 people and 120.000 kilos tomatoes took part in it.

It was filmed by BBC and some japanese TVs at least, maybe it can still be seen at BBC for those avaliabe.

[ 08-23-2001: Message edited by: Ignacio ]

Oh no!!!!

I planned on smashing a couple of ripe tomatoes over my head on the day of the big event!! Now I'm going to have to wait until next year, unless they'll give me a dispensation to do it posthumously...

I don't know why, but this seems it would be a fantastic way to let off steam. I suggested to my wife that we could do it at home. She looked at me and laughed;

"We could get a couple dozen people involved. Get about 500 pounds of tomatoes!" I said, half seriously.

"At $1.69 a pound for tomatoes?" She said, "So... who's going to pay for them?"

Crestfallen, I slinked away to my office. My computer doesn't act like a bean counter.

Wolf (Licking his wounds. It sounded like a great idea!)

Wolf,

I read in the newspaper that 2.000.000 ptas. were spent, so it means about 20 ptas.(.11 $)/kilo of tomatoes.

It helps that the area is in a zone producer of many vegetable crops, so they are cheap, but also, I think they use lower quality tomatoes and get them at wholesale prices directly from farmers.

You could do it with ... What is very cheap in The States? Ah, water. You make ice.. and then you could mince it until it was like puree.

Wait, that is what you do every Christmas!

Ignacio,



Maybe I could have a whole ship load of them sent in. At that price, we'd just turn it all into tomato juice, and squirt each other with it.

Wolf (Who always has a plan his wife will shoot down... ) Did I mention that she's a Saint for putting up with me? She's standing right here, so I have to be nice...

Wolf, back in my Chicago days we'd have so many of those jumbo zucchini (you know, the ones that are big enough to park a VW in!) that we'd leave them on people's doorsteps and run. Maybe you could just grind a bunch of those up into a nice,mushy white pulp and fling fistfuls at each other. Just think...no nasty red stains!

la maestra(who enjoys the happy frolicking of wolves at play...from a respectful distance, of course!)