Mediterranean Events

A selection of videos looking at events that take place around the Mediterranean, many of which are based around food, harvests and religion.

Spain - La Tomatina, The World's Largest Tomato Fight

La Tomatina is a food fight festival held on the last Wednesday of August each year in the town of Buñol in the Valencia region of Spain. Tens of thousands of participants come from all over the world to fight in a brutal battle where more than one hundred metric tons of over-ripe tomatoes are thrown in the streets.

The tomatoes are grown especially for the festival and they are generally not good enough for eating.

At around 10 a.m., the first event of the Tomatina begins. The first feat is for the crowd to figure out how to get people to climb up a greased pole with a ham at the top. While this is happening, the group works up a frenzy singing and dancing while being showered from hoses. Once someone is able to release the ham from the pole, several trucks haul the bounty of tomatoes into the center of the town, Plaza del Pueblo.

The signal for the beginning of the fight is firing of water cannons, and the chaos begins.