This is the high part of the vacation season, and many places in Spain are geared up with special events to attract visitors. Events range from culture to music to just plain spectacularly silly, like the annual Tomatina Tomato Fight in Bunol, Valencia. The picture above is from that one, and here’s a video LINK
Already underway is San Sebastian’s Semana Grande, with a week (8/8 to 8/15) of music and bullfighting—and an international firework contest. In Barcelona, the biggest annual neighborhood festival, the Fiesta Mayor de Gracia, featuring music, food and contests for best decorated street starts soon (8/15-21) See Gumbo’s pictures from last year HERE. That’s followed (8/22-30) by Aste Nagusia, which is Basque for Big Week. It takes place in Bilbao, with dancing, fireworks, bullfights and concerts—and a competition to see who can make the ugliest face.
If you missed the running of the bulls in Pamplona, it’s not too late to be gored. Cuellar’s running is from 8/30-9/3, and is the oldest in Spain. If you’d rather not, you can drop in on the month-long music festival in Santander, featuring opera, ballet and theater. Or Marbella, whose festival runs to 8/22 and features such acts as Enrique Iglesias and the Village People (you wondered where they went, right?)
Oh, yes, Tomatina. In Bunol, about 25 miles from Valencia, on August 26, over 40,000 people will show up for the world’s biggest food fight, throwing tomatoes at each other for hours. If it looks slippery when wet, that’s partly because protocol includes squishing the tomatoes in your hand first to avoid too hard an impact.
TheLocal.es has an article that includes these events and more, with links to many of them. Click HERE for it.
