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Fiesta in Pamplona: the fierce and colorful San Fermin festival
In early July Pamplona becomes the scene of bullfighting, bull running, bull talking and memories of Hemingway. In 75 BC the Roman General Pompey the Great established a military camp in the northeast of present-day Spain. But Pamplona only began to attract interest in the Middle Ages, when it became a stopover for pilgrims going to the shrine dedicated to St. James at Santiago de Compostela. At the end of the 16th Century the Navarrese city hosted the first summer festival of San Fermin, who saved the city from plague, and its status changed forever. But the thousands of people who flock to Pamplona between t and 14 July are…
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San Fermines festival in Pamplona: bullfighting and brutality, drink and song, joy and excitement
I remember first reading Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises” (or “Fiesta”, how it is sometimes named) while still at school and from that daydreaming to see and experience San Fermines – a festival of bullfighting and brutality, drink and song, joy and excitement. This year I finally did it – while traveling in Spain, visited Pamplona, where the festival takes place every July. And you know what? Now I have a small understanding why San Fermines was Ernest Hemingway’s obsession. He first came to San Fermines in 1923 and paid his final visit to the annual fiestas in 1959. This festival has everything a traveler can dream off:…
