Events

When you say Spain, you think fiesta. The fun-loving Castilians have a long list of festivals to honor some saint or holy day. Their passion for partying is too enormous a bill that not enough saints can fill, thus they also celebrate bull-fighting, tomatoes, babies, grapes, champagne, wines, and what have you. There are localized ones unique to towns in honor of their patron saints or events, and there are general country-wide ones. Where there is none, they will find a reason for a fiesta anytime.

Spanish fiestas are always bursting with pomp, spectacle, bizarreries and thunderous fanfare (they have not been labeled the noisiest country in Europe and the second loudest in the world (after Japan) for nothing). Of the countless Spanish festivals, these two are quite outrageous:

The Tomato Festival or La Tomatina in Buñol, Valencia. Nope, this is not a tomato fashion show. Only in Spain would anyone think of taking a tomato fight to festival fame. The "Tomatina" is the world's biggest (there are others?!) and happens annually on the last Wednesday of August at Buñol, near Valencia. At 11 in the morning, the war begins with tomatoes as ammunition and rages on till 1 in the afternoon, at which time, some 3000 tomato warriors from around Spain and other locales will have wasted over 240,000 pounds of tomatoes in the name of fun. (One wonders, do they transform the spoils of this war to world-renowned gazpacho or other innumerable tomato-based dishes typical of Spanish fare?)

Fallas Festival in Valencia. Another one for the Book of Zany. Every March in Valencia, St. Joseph (San José), the patron saint of carpenters, is celebrated with the feast of Las Fallas. Much time, money and energy is spent constructing the "ninots" (gigantic statues of cardboard, wood, and plaster), which are positioned in 350 key intersections and parks around the city. On the last day of the festival, March 19th, these proud "ninots" are burned amid fireworks and systematic bedlam.

For more festival information: http://www.spanish-fiestas.com/spanish-festivals/