Pamplona

For 50 weeks of the year Pamplona remains a quiet, provincial town in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Between 6 and 14 July it explodes with people as thousands arrive from all over the world to witness and take part in the madness of the fiesta of San Fermin. It is a festival swamped with riotous drinking and music: the ritual at its centre is violent and often bloody.

Pamplona Hotels

Ciudad De Pamplona - C/Iturrama, 21, 31007, Pamplona, SPAIN
Abba Reino De Navarra - Acella, 1, 31008, Pamplona, SPAIN
Albret Hotels - C/ Ermitagana 3, 31008, Pamplona, SPAIN
Iruna Park - Arcadio Larraona, 1, 31008, Pamplona, SPAIN
Avenida Hotel - Av. Zaragoza, 5, 31003, Pamplona, SPAIN

The excitement starts at 8.00 each day, when half a dozen bulls are let loose through the streets between the Town Hall and the bullring. The town's young men along with hundreds of tourists run with them, thus, traditionally, proving their manhood. Driven by bravado, fiesta adrenalin and usually a fair amount of alcohol, they run among the roused and frightened bulls. Hysteria takes a hold and fear is palpable above the noise and fury of the thundering beasts and screaming crowds. It is an infectious madness and without doubt one of the most exciting sights in Spain' 'but it is also a bloody affair: every year people are gored and there are sometimes deaths. It is not a festival for the squeamish.

If you survive the thrills of the morning, you can go to watch the same bulls fight to the death in the bullring in the early evening. The drama and ritual are rousing and spectacular if you have a stomach for the gory fight that goes with it. Tickets are at a premium since the fights attract the top matadors in the country.

The fiesta was first internationally popularized by Ernest Hemingway, the American writer and bloodsports enthusiast, who visited the San Fermin celebrations in the 1920s and described them in his book The Sun Also Rises. Nearly 50 years later, in The Dangerous Summer, he was to bewail just how touristy the fiesta had become. There is a street here named after him and a bust of the writer stands outside the bulking.