I Went to La Tomatina and Came Home Smelling of Tomato Soup for a Week

I’d heard about La Tomatina for years before I actually went.

Everyone who’s spent time in Spain seems to know someone who’s done it, and the stories always land somewhere between “best day of my life” and “never again.” Having now done it myself, in August this year, I can confirm both are true at the same time.

La Tomatina Festival in Buñol, Spain

For anyone who hasn’t come across it, La Tomatina is a one-hour tomato fight that takes over the small town of Buñol, just outside Valencia, on the last Wednesday of every August.

Trucks tip tens of thousands of kilos of overripe tomatoes into the street, a few thousand people turn each other into pulp with them, and then everyone goes and hoses themselves down. Written like that, it sounds completely mad. Having lived it, I can tell you it’s somehow even madder in person.

The Build-Up to La Tomatina Is Half the Fun

I based myself in Valencia and took the train out to Buñol that morning, which is what most people without a car end up doing. The town itself is tiny, nowhere near built for the crowd it gets once a year, so by mid-morning the streets were already rammed with people in white t-shirts that hadn’t been ruined yet.

Before any tomatoes show up, there’s the palo jabón, a greased wooden pole with a ham tied to the top that people try to climb. I watched a fair few attempts go spectacularly wrong. Legs flailing, grip gone after about a meter, somebody’s friend trying to form a human ladder underneath and taking three people down with him.

Nobody actually got the ham off that pole while I was watching, though a few people managed to touch it before sliding straight back down, which somehow got as much of a cheer as if they’d actually won it. There’s a strange kind of heroism in failing at something that visibly, in front of a crowd that size.

Then the Trucks Arrive

The actual fight starts with a signal, and from that point it stops being a spectator thing almost immediately. The trucks come through slowly, tomatoes get thrown off the back before they’ve even properly stopped, and within about two minutes the street has gone from “people milling about in white t-shirts” to something closer to a warzone made entirely of fruit.

What nobody tells you beforehand is how quickly you lose any sense of strategy. I’d gone in with some vague plan of sticking near the edges, staying mobile, not getting pinned against a wall. That plan lasted maybe ninety seconds before I was in the middle of it like everyone else, soaked through, getting hit from three directions at once and laughing too hard to really register it.

The official advice is to squash the tomato before you throw it so it doesn’t hurt on impact, and after the first few direct hits to the back of the head I understood exactly why that rule exists.

By the end of the hour the street wasn’t visible anymore. You were wading through tomato pulp that came up past the ankle in places. And the smell, somewhere between fresh tomato sauce and something starting to ferment, is one of those things you don’t fully appreciate until it’s all over you.

What I Got Right (and Wrong) Packing-Wise

I’d read enough warnings to pack reasonably sensibly, and most of it paid off. I brought a spare T-shirt in a dry bag for afterwards, which felt slightly excessive while packing and then like the single smartest decision of the trip about twenty minutes after the fight ended. Walking around in a tomato-soaked shirt for the rest of the day is not something I’d recommend, mainly because it never actually dries, it just goes cold and clammy.

Shoes were the other thing I got right, almost by accident. I wore an old pair of trainers I was happy to throw away afterwards, and I mean that literally, they went straight in a bin near the station once I’d changed. No amount of washing was getting tomato pulp out of the soles and stitching, and trying would have been a waste of a perfectly good afternoon.

I’d packed flip-flops for after, which turned out to matter more than I expected, since your feet are swimming in acidic tomato juice for an hour and the last thing you want is to then trap them back inside wet trainers.

Where I’d do things differently next time is the clean-up itself. I ended up rinsing off in the river that runs near the town, along with a fair few other people who’d had the same idea, rather than queuing for one of the organised showers. It did the job, more or less, but a river full of strangers all trying to get tomato out of their hair is its own particular kind of chaos, and I was still finding seeds in places seeds shouldn’t be two days later. If I went again, I’d budget the extra ten or fifteen minutes to queue properly instead of chasing the quicker option.

The Bit After La Tomatina Ends

What surprised me most was how fast the mood flips once the second signal goes. One minute everyone’s mid-throw, still fully committed, and the next it’s like someone’s turned a switch off. People just stop, mid-motion in some cases, and stand there covered head to toe, looking around at each other like they’re only just taking in the scale of what’s happened.

There’s a weird calm that settles over the street for about thirty seconds before everyone starts laughing again, this time at how ridiculous everyone else looks rather than at the fight itself.

Buñol’s residents handle this part with more patience than I think I would in their position. A lot of them come out with garden hoses and start spraying down anyone walking past, locals and tourists alike, seemingly just for the fun of it rather than out of any obligation. I got hosed down twice by people I never spoke a word to, and both times it felt like a genuinely friendly thing rather than someone trying to get rid of a stranger covered in tomato off their doorstep.

The Smell Followed Me Home

This is the bit nobody warns you about properly.

Tomato juice doesn’t just wash off and disappear. For the best part of a week afterwards, certain items of clothing I thought I’d cleaned properly would give off a faint, slightly sour tomato smell the moment they got even a little warm or damp.

My hotel room in Valencia smelled vaguely of gazpacho for two full days. It’s not unpleasant exactly, just unexpected. The kind of thing that makes you double-check you’ve actually showered properly before heading out for dinner.

Would I Go to La Tomatina Again?

Without much hesitation, yes.

It’s chaotic, slightly painful in places, and objectively a very strange way to spend a morning. But there’s something genuinely levelling about an hour where several thousand strangers are all equally soaked, equally covered in pulp and equally laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing is.

You don’t get many experiences like that as an adult, where the only goal is to make a complete mess of yourself and enjoy it.

If you’re thinking about going, my advice is simple: pack like you mean it, old shoes you’re happy to lose, a dry bag for something clean to change into, and go in with zero plan for staying out of the way. You won’t manage it anyway, and the people who try to stay clean on the edges look like they’re having a noticeably worse time than everyone in the middle of it.

How to Get Tickets for La Tomatina

A typical historic Spanish town square showing parts of an old city gate and whitewashed buildings — The town of Buñol

You need a ticket to join La Tomatina, so don’t just turn up in Buñol expecting to take part.

You can buy tickets through the official La Tomatina website. They offer tickets plus transport as well, and not only from Valencia but also from Barcelona, Alicante, and several other places.

I bought my ticket about a year in advance. But, I’m not trying to say you have to buy tickets that early. I’ve also heard of people buying tickets a few days in advance. If you really want to go though, I wouldn’t leave it until the last minute just in case tickets sell out.

If you’re coming from Valencia, you could also book an organized La Tomatina trip. It includes your entry ticket and return transport, plus extras such as paella, drinks, showers and pre- and post-festival parties. La Tomatina is the most fun if you’re with a good group of people. So especially if you’re traveling alone or with just one other person, joining a group can make the whole day even more fun.

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