5 Crazy Food Fight Festivals To Add To Your Bucket List
The Craziest Food Fight Festivals In Europe
Forget about the boring run of the mill cultural food events that bombard every major city. Why not interact with your food and join these nutters in the most action packed food fight festivals on the planet.
Discover the cultural heritage of these historic towns by having a ball and maybe an orange or tomato or two. Here’s a few of the craziest food fiestas to add to your bucket list.
1. Clean Monday Flour War, Greece
The day known as Clean Monday dates back to the 19th Century and marks the start of Lent along with the end of carnival season. What better way to celebrate than pelt flour at your fellow man in the Greek port town of Galaxidi, 211 km’s west of Athens, Greece. Locals don their best fighting overalls, paint their faces with coal and brighten up the flour by dying the flour bags with food colouring. Bring your goggles to this one, it’s going to get messy but fear not you can always jump into the sea once you’ve finished dancing the night away in the streets and taverns.
Where: Galaxidi, Greece
When: March 2, 2020
Rad rating: 4 out of 5 locos
2. World Custard Pie Championship, England
Teams come from all over the world to take part in the ultimate custard pie competition. The event dates back to 1967 inspired by Charlie Chaplin as a way for raising funds for the village hall of Coxheath in England.
Bring your friends along for the ride as you need a team of four people to take part. The rules consist of teams wearing fancy dress and throwing pies off a table to try and hit their opponents. You get six points for a pie in the face, five for the chest, three for the arm and if you miss three times in a row points are deducted. Challenge rival teams such as the Fairy Cakes, Three Men and a Pie, Custard-y to be declared the champ.
Where: Coxheath UK
When: June 1, 2019
Rad rating: 3 out of 5 locos
3. La Batalla de Vino de Haro (Wine Fight), Spain
The whole town of Haro in the famous wine region of La Rioja in the north of Spain take to the streets in this epic celebration of Vino aka Wine Battle! Grab a container, bottle, bucket, water pistel and spray the town and everyone in it purple. Eat incredible tapas, run around the bull ring and later on head in to party. This fiesta is one not to be missed.
Where: Haro, La Rioja, Spain
When: June 29-30, 2019
Rad rating: 4 out of 5 locos
Stoke Travel are offering all-inclusive camping at their festival campsite, transfers to and from the wine fight, red wine for throwing at wine fight and awesome campsite parties.
4. La Tomatina, Spain
Quite possible the mother of all food fights. 20,000 people descend upon the town of Buñol, 38km’s west of Valencia in the east of Spain on the last Wednesday of August. Water cannons are fired off to signal the start of the mayhem of La Tomatina.
Trucks carrying a bounty of tomatoes plough through the crowds. It’s every man and women for themselves in a crazy hour of throwing tomatoes at anything and anyone that moves. The fighting ends when the cannon is fired again to signal the end and fire trucks are brought in to hose down the streets.
Where: Buñol, Spain
When: August 28, 2019
Rad rating: 5 out of 5 locos
Stoke Travel are offering all-inclusive camping at their festival campsite, transfers to and from the tomato fight and free entry to Stoke Travel’s Foreplay Party with live bands and DJ’s.
5. Carnevale di Ivrea (battle of the oranges), Italy
Time to get medieval! Taking place in Ivrea, Northern Italy, the Carnevale di Ivrea otherwise known as the Battle of the Oranges is the undisputed king of food fights in Italy. Origins of the festival go back to the 12th Century and folk law has it that the tyrant William VII of Montserrat tried to rape Violetta, the miller’s daughter the night before her wedding, claiming that it was his noble right. His attempt didn’t go according to plan and the young woman decapitated the tyrant instead and the villagers proceed to blitz the palace.
Thousands of towns people divide into nine combat teams and belt oranges at each other for three days over the carnival period. You could stay behind the safety nets and watch the action or get stuck in and hit the battlefield but remember to wear the Berretto Frigio which symbolises that you are on the revolutionaries side. Awesome fun.
Where: Ivrea, Italy
When: February 22-25, 2020
Rad rating: 5 out of 5 locos
Related Articles:
Beyond Pizza: 6 of the Craziest Italian Festivals
La Tomatina Festival, World’s Largest Food Fight
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