What Spanish city could be more perfect to host the annual festival San Fermin than Pamplona? With its energetic, rich, and vibrant culture and history, Pamplona welcomes more than a million guests from Spain and around the world each year for the exciting San Fermin festivities. The festival takes place from July 6th at 12:00 PM to July 14th at 12:00 AM and includes many traditional events, the most famous being the running of the bulls called encierro.
This upbeat celebration attracts the attention of millions as it’s constantly on the news and talked about in novels, magazines, and social media. Who wouldn’t want to talk all about a week-long Spanish party?
Why San Fermin is celebrated? The festival is held in Saint Fermin, Pamplona’s first bishop’s, honor. It is said he was beheaded in France during a preaching voyage, and is considered a martyr in the Catholic Church. Legend says that he was dragged around the streets in Pamplona by bulls, which is one of the reasons why the San Fermin celebration is famous for its bull fights.
Another reason why bullfighting is an iconic event dates back to the 14th century when Spain hosted many commercial fairs. Nice, warm weather invited cattle merchants and their animals into Pamplona. Bullfighting events from the fair and religious ceremonies honoring Saint Fermin eventually merged into the organized festival celebrated today.
Along with bullfighting, the festival consists of many other traditions such as musical and theatre performances, sports tournaments, dances and fireworks. People also socialize while drinking red wine, so drunken partygoers often participate in these events and dance on the streets.
But what about the most famous tradition, encierro? The running of the bulls and bullfighting are the most popular festival events and were even highlighted in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Each day of festivities begins with the running of the bulls during which hundreds of people run in front of six bulls through the narrow streets of the old part of Pamplona. The run ends in the bullring and the bulls stay there until the bullfights.
Bullfighting has been highly controversial in recent years since the running of the bulls injures and even kills people. However, San Fermin has been a tradition for hundreds of years so the people of Pamplona are reluctant to take away the most famous event that attracts over a million international guests looking to take part in the festivities.
Now who wants to take a quick trip to Pamplona with me and out run some bulls?
"San Fermín 2010" by Leandro Suarez, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
