La Tomatina & Valencia

The last Wednesday of every August in the city of Bunol, the largest tomato fight takes place... 

Me and Josh met while working together at Purple. We worked side by side for months - him in the kitchen and me in the front of house - hardly speaking to each other until the day I walked into the line of fire of a cherry tomato he threw at someone else... We thought it was only fitting to be apart of La Tomatina to celebrate what brought us together!

This was definitely a trip of traveling.. we flew into Barcelona for one night and then took a four hour bus ride to Valencia, about an hour away from Bunol... and that was just the beginning.

Plaza de Toros, one of the largest bull fighting rings in Spain.

The Post Office

The Catedral of Valencia which is said to have the actual Holy Grail on display

Horchata, Valencia's famous drink

We spent our second day in Valencia at Playa El Saler on the Mediterranean Sea. It was gorgeous!

Wednesday, August 29th - La Tomatina is finally here! We woke up at 5 in the morning to get to the small city of Bunol, where the fight takes place. Half of the fun was getting there because we decided just to wing it! The train station was packed with our fellow eager food fighters. We had to sit on the floor of the train because there were no more seats!

Walking into the town

At 9am a ham is hung from a greased up telephone pole. The willing patrons have to climb up the pole and retrieve the ham for the tomato fight to start. In the meantime, we stood shoulder to shoulder with this crowd for two hours waiting for the ham to be freed!!

The only relief was the townspeople throwing buckets of water from their rooftops or spraying us with hoses!

Before the fight started...

And after...

Crowds of people leaving, thankfully the townspeople will hose you off on your way out!

This claustrophobic, germaphobe, borderline-hypochondriac earned a Sangria!!

My shoes were destroyed!! Had to throw them out, luckily there were people selling flip flops on the way out.

Waiting to get on the train ride back to Valencia

We had so much fun, but never again!!

We spent our last day in Valencia at Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias

L'Oceanografic recreates marine habitats from every ocean. 

Now just a 4 hour bus ride back to Barcelona, 30 minutes in a cab to the airport, 6 hours waiting for our 2 hour flight, 3 hours on a train/bus back to Garmisch.. and we were back home! Crazy but worth it!