Valencia/La Tomatina

Another big day of travel preceeded our arrival to Alicante, Spain where we would spend a night before heading to Valencia. We headed straight for the beach the next day where we soaked up some rays before we had to leave to catch our train to Valencia. The beach at Alicante was quite cool though, with a big castle overhanging the beach behind the beachfront apartments. After the weather we had in Scotland, it felt so good to go swimming and hang by the beach.

After pretty rubbish accommodation in Alicante, we found ourselves staying in a really great AirBnB loft apartment in the heart of the old district in Valencia. But the reason for our arrival in Valencia was so I could take part in La Tomatina. La Tomatina is an annual festival in a small town outside of Valencia called Bunol which involves a huge tomato fight with 20,000 people. Louise wasn’t keen to join as she said she doesn’t like crowds, but I absolutely could not wait until the next day.

I was up early with everything on ready to go. As I navigated my way through the old district to try and find the buses, I was stopped by a young guy from Yorkshire asking if I was heading to La Tomatina with the same company as he and his other mate from Yorkshire, Ewan, were heading there. Once we arrived, we added 2 girls from Canada, and a lady from Adelaide to our crew for the day.

We headed in with the masses, and although we seemed to get lost to our entry point, we somehow stumbled right into the thick of it, and found ourselves by the ham pole. The ham pole is a big (5m) greasy pole with a ham nailed to the top of it. The tradition is to climb the pole in any manner possible and pull the ham off which would kickstart the festivities. If it didn’t come down, the festival would automatically kick off at 11am for an hour of tomato throwing madness. I watched the boys have a crack at trying to get the ham down, but it was pretty brutal to be honest! Both the boys got absolutely swamped and manhandled, so with my skinny frame I decided against it as some of the locals were getting a bit loco. 

We left the crammed crowds by the ham pole to find a bit of space, which made it more enjoyable for us and the girls. At 11am the masses parted and the trucks headed down the street to get the party started. It was absolute carnage, and a huge laugh at the same time. Some of the unrippened tomatoes hurt a bit if you got sconed by one, but most of the time it was pretty good. I found a great possie with these two young guys from Invercargill who I cowered behind while trying to pop off Ewan as he stood out with his 6’2 frame. After 4 trucks you were ankle deep in tomatoes, with the remnants all through your hair, inside your ears and nose, and your clothes absolutely caked with them. After 1 hour though the horn sounded and we traipsed back to the bus grinning with rest of the 20,000 punters that took part. Thankfully the locals all come to the party too and take great pleasure in hosing down the revelers with the hoses as you head off. Our crew of 6 all had plenty of stories to share throughout the afternoon as our tour party took us to a hotel for a swim and some Paella (a Valencian specialty).

The next day was another beach day, and we had the boys from Yorkshire join us for a day of recovery. After sharing a local drink with them that night, they headed off to Malaga while Louise and I used the next day for a walking tour of the city and stocking up on food from the local market. Heading to the markets has been one of our favourite past times throughout Europe, and Valencias market has been the best we have come across with tasty produce, and local meat products to make our lunches and dinners with. 

The city itself was definitely a very beautiful and liveable city. For our last day we did a self guided walking tour and went and had a yum seafood meal along the waterfront. Louise does a great job at finding us the best spots to try all the local cuisine, so im enjoying branching out. Our meal that night consisted of squid, mussels, fish rice, and shrimp dishes. After fulling ourselves up again it was time to prepare for a big day of travel to our next stop - Madrid.