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G'day Friends and Family
This blog is a brief overview of our 6 days in Spain, including the infamous La Tomatina (tomato throwing festival) in the small town of Bunol (pronounced Bunyol). We hope you enjoy looking at the photos as much as we did producing them!
Monday 29/08/05 We arrived in Madrid airport (it reminded me of the old Coolangatta airport - very 'no frills') and picked up our hire car - the diesel Seat Ibiza! Needless to say, it wasn't over-powered. But that was a good thing considering we were driving on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car. Needless to say, confidence was low!
The first objective was to get to our accomodation in the city where we were meeting up with our travel buddies Jen and Kelly Reilly (Friends we met through PJ and Kirsty). And before you ask, they are no relation to Rachael! We quickly discovered that Spanish drivers are not great at following road rules, however we managed to arrive in one piece.
Kelly and Jen quickly proved to be worth their weight in gold as they could speak some Spanish unlike us. After dispensing
with the luggage at the hostel we jumped on the metro and decided to imerse ourselves straight into some culture - the Spanish modern Art Museum. This museum is home to artwork from the likes of Picasso, Dali and Miro - total trippers if you ask me! Following this, we decided on a leisurley picnic in the central park and then a wander through central Madrid. The city was buzzing with people everywhere, including the red light district that we 'stumbled' upon (nice directions Kelly!). After a couple of hours it was time to re-charge the fuel tanks again with some tapas (traditional in Spain) and vino in a central square. This was a great start to our Spanish experience.
Tuesday 30/08/05 After a breakfast consisting of mainly bread and cheese we headed to the Spanish Royal Palace - a very grand structure similar to the big palaces in the UK. This was to be the last bit of sightseeing in Madrid before we all piled into the Ibiza and headed south for Valencia where we were to be based for the rest of the trip. The trip takes around 3.5 hours, during which time we stopped off for
Locals in the streets before the craziness
They packed up just before the trowing began....wise old men. another picnic in a random small town (Joe Foley - the pocket knife you donated to us has come in VERY handy for these picnics!).
After arriving safely we then had to find our seperate hotels. Jen and Kelly had booked a random hotel only a few days before and needed to check their email to confirm where they had booked. By pure chance it turned out they had booked the exact same hotel as us (what are the odds in a city of 250,000 people)! After checking in we decided it was time again for tapas and vino at a local restaurant where we discussed the plan for the following day - La Tomatina. The festival started at 10am, so the plan was to catch an early train (45 min journey) to beat the crowds - expected 30,000 people. We all elected for an early night.
Wednesday 31/08/05 It was very painful getting out of bed early on a holiday, but it was essential if we wanted to catch the 7:30am train to Bunol. The plan payed off as we beat the large crowds that converge on this small town. It was a strange sight seeing so
many people wearing bikinis, boadshorts, floaties, goggles, etc. getting on a train to head inland away from the beach!
Breakfast consisted of some spansih omlette closely followed by beer and sangria. It was quite a specticle watching people from all around the world converge on this spanish town. As it turned out a large number of these tourists were Aussies........the allure of a massive food fight combined with beer drinking - I can't think why there were so many Aussies there?
As we wandered down towards the main street of this tiny town there was a gradual increase in the number of houses covered in plastic! When we eventually hit the town center we joined the rapidly growing and tightly packed crowd......by this time it was just after 10am. At one stage we were handed a piece of paper with the 'rules' which stated:
- Tomatos may only be thrown in the specified time (11-12, signalled by gun shots at beginning and end)
- Tomatos must be squashed in your hand before throwing
Seemed simple enough to us.........
As time ticked on towards 11am, the crowd grew larger and more restless. It reminded me of a
Beer and sangria before the chaos
Goes down surprisingly well at 9am mosh pit at the Big Day Out. Houses glad wrapped up, locals and TV camera crews lining the roofs and balconies, people throwing buckes of water - it was all happening! People were even getting their clothes ripped off before seeing them go flying off into the crowd. We waited and watched in the thick of it, trying to get a look at what was happening around us while dodging plastic bottles and wet t-shirts flying past. One traditional element of the festival had been underway for quite a while by this stage......A leg of ham is tied to the top of a greased up pole, with the idea being that it must be cut down by hand before the commencement of tomato throwing!? (Don't ask me why). As such a large group of blokes were building a kind of human pyramid to try and get up to it.
11am arrived, and although we couldn't see what had happend to the ham, we assumed it must have been cut down as a gunshot rang out, signaling the start of the chaos. Four dump trucks proceeded to drive through the crowd dumping 20 tonnes of ripe tomatos on main street.
The first one stopped right next to us. Water was also also being pumped out over the crowd through a number of hoses. People and limbs were flying, as well as a heap of tomatos. With goggles on (most people were wearing goggles as tomatos are acidic) it became very difficult to see anything. It was every man for themselves. The tomatos quickly turned to a pulp and after mixing with the water, more of a puree. After an intense hour a second gunshot signalled the end of the throwing, not that much notice was taken by some people. By this time people were swimming in tomatos down the main street.....including us.
Unfortunately during the chaos we had lost each other, but we met back up at a pre-arranged meeting point and headed down to the local stream where they had set up some showers.....with freezing water. Locals (particularly the elderly men) got into the act by bringing out their garden hoses and offering to hose down any willing bikini clad women! No sooner had the last tomato been thrown and the locals were out in force to sweep the streets clean. We met up with Kelly and Jen
and dryed off in the sun with more beer, sangria and pizza. Kelly was looking worse for wear with no shirt and half of his shorts missing! After a few more drinks we caught the train back to Valencia and walked back to our motel. We got a few strange looks as we wandered through town with ripped clothes and tomato still hanging out of our hair! By this stage we were exhausted, so we had a quick bite to eat and hit the sack.
Thursday 01/09/05 After the chaos of La Tomatina, we were all ready for a relaxing day. We didn't emerge from our rooms until about 10am, and after a quick breakfast we headed to the beach. The water was beautiful (except for being without waves) and there was pleanty of room to use the Aerobie (frisby). It's at this point we should mention the weather - we had clear blue skys and temperatures in low 30's for the entire trip. Needless to say we got a little burnt.
In the afternoon we walked around the grounds surrounding the science museum, Imax, planatarium, aquarium, and performing arts buildings. These buildings are all unique designs surrounded
by gardens and water features (see photos). We grabed a coffee there before heading to the airconditioned shopping mall to beat the heat and for some window shopping. Later that night we headed into the heart of Valencia for a 3 course dinner that included traditional Spanish Paella (only cost 10 euros). Following this we wandered around old town taking in the nightlife. We stumbled upon a historic cathederal next to a open flat square that has evidently become a favourite haunt for skateboarders, rollerbladers, bmx bikers, and a host of street entertainers. We decided to visit the Cathederal tomorrow when it was open.
Friday 02/09/05 After another stint down on the beach we headed into town to check out the food markets. Needless to say, Rach was in heaven! The markets specialised in fresh produce such as the olives that Spain is famous for. After lunch we headed back to the Cathederal from the night before. It is said this cathederal holds the holy grail, although there seems to be some debate about this! Regardless, they had a well guarded chalice on display made from agate, dated 1st century BC......apparently St Peter gave it to the spanish bishops
to look after. The cathederal was very interesting, with some amazing artwork and even some preserved body parts of a saint.
The afternoon was spent at the Historic Art Museum, which primarily consisted of a lot of 13-16th century religeous paintings that had been removed from various churches and cathederals. Facinating stuff, although it can tend to induce a few yawns after an hour or 2.
That night Jen and Kelly departed via bus to Portugal to carry on their trip around Europe. After dropping them off we headed back into town for.....you guessed it......tapas and wine for dinner! The restaurant was very cool, and operated like a sushi train. You simply picked out the tapas you wanted to eat and payed for however many you had eaten at the end.
Saturday 03/09/05 After checking out and grabbing breakfast we decided to do a bit of shopping since it was reasonably cheap for clothes in Spain. Justin bought a jacket for the oncoming UK winter, but Rach was surprisingly restrained and didn't end up buying anything!! After lunch we headed back towards Madrid, and after returning the car we boarded our plane back to the UK.
A
special thanks must go to Kelly and Jen for meeting up with us and making the trip an even greater experience - we had lots of fun! It also helped that you could translate for us!! Cheers guys.
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Gurdy
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Rachael why would you wear a white shirt to something where you are bound to get covered in tomatos. Looks like great fun.