Pamplona: the running of the bulls and the walls

The Plaza del Castillo, historic drawing room of the city, once even hosted bullfights before the construction of the current arena.

From here departs the route of eight hundred seventy-five meters of Calle Estafeta, the heart of the encierro: the bull run that every morning of San Fermín races through the city streets.

Continuing, one reaches the Cathedral of Pamplona, Gothic inside and Neoclassical in facade, with a cloister considered among the most refined in Europe.

Toward evening, the Citadel, a five-pointed fortress from the sixteenth century today converted to public park, offers a green respite along the ancient defensive walls of the city.

Outside San Fermín days, Calle Estafeta is an ordinary pedestrian street full of bars and shops: only the fixed barriers anchored to the walls betray, year-round, what that street really serves for one week.

Hemingway's novel 'The Sun Also Rises' made the Pamplona bull run famous internationally far more than it had ever been before, transforming a local ritual into a global tourist draw.