Advice for travellers at Spain's La Tomatina festival
Friday, 27 July 2012 8:56 AM
The annual food fight does have some rules - like squashing the tomatoes before you throw them!
The organisers of Spain's infamous La Tomatina festival have released important safety advice for the 40,000 festival-goers who are expected to attend the food fight this year.
It is essential, according to the organisers, to squash the tomatoes before you throw them, because it reduces the impact they have when they hit. As soon as the second shot sounds, participants must cease throwing the ripe fruits.
Other bad practices to be avoided include ripping people's T-shirts, bringing in bottles or hard objects that could cause accidents, and standing too close to the lorries that bring in the tomatoes.
La Tomatina is rumoured to have begun as a fight during a parade in 1945, when tomatoes were stolen from a nearby vegetable stall and used as missiles until police arrested the perpetrators and made them pay for the fruit.
The festival always takes place on the last Friday of August - this year it falls on the 29th. This August, the Valencia Bus Turistic will be running a shuttle service from Valencia city to La Tomatina at a cost of 16 euro.
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