Pamplona
The hotel was on a
very narrow main street in the middle of the town. The facade was
modern but when we went in it was full of dust and noise. Turned out
they were redoing the whole first floor and had tiles and concrete
everywhere but were still open. The reception was now on the first
floor. We negotiated a room and left the bikes in the stour with the
workers.
In the morning we
had a nice long lie-in and when we got up we decided not to bother
with making breakfast but to treat ourselves to a breakfast in one of
the nice cafés around the corner. We went to café Iruna in the main
square hoping for bacon and eggs. It
was buzzing with locals out for a coffee and a gossip, plus a few
groups of pilgrims. We had a nice big cup of cafe con leche and two
pastries each for 4 euros a head.
The plan after
breakfast was to lhave a look at Pamplona, and find out the route of
the famous Bull run. We walked past the famous Palacio de Navarra and the museum
through tight windy streets, astride with high old buildings
plastered with small balconies, to the beginning of the route to the
corral where they keep the bulls before they release them on to the
crowd. It turns out to be used as a car park during the rest of the
year. From here we walked back along the 300m stretch through the
tight streets of the town, the whole of the Bull run believe it or
not. It is run every morning during the festival week at 8am, lasting
less than 10 minutes each time. The roads are very busy with shops,
bars and cafés, all living off the legend of the Bull Run. It turns
out this is a very popular thing to to do, with Bull Runs happening
all over Europe and even in the UK until a few hundred years ago.
It's hard to
imagine these streets with hundreds of people all being dressed with
white shirts, red scarves and the newspaper of the day being chased
by about 6 – 8 raging bulls. The newspaper apparently helps them
to defend themselves against the bull if it comes down to it. I am
not sure that the local celebrity gossip pictures of infidelity and
beach bikinis is enough to deter a raging bull from its course.
At the end of each
run, the surviving bulls are given a respite before their main event
as Matador-fodder in the evening in the Bull ring. Then they are probably barbecued up nicely and eaten by the same people who got trampled by them earlier on. Justice is served.
Now it was time
for lunch. Greg suggested to treat ourselves to a little menu del dia
and this turned out to be a fantastic idea. We passed a nice
restaurant earlier which offered a menu for 11.50EUR, including a
glass of wine. The food was delicious and best of all the Spanish are
not stingy with their portions. What a feast!
Full of food and
full of day, satisfied we went back to our hotel. So far Spain has
been good to us, let's see what tomorrow brings.
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| Breakfast restaurant |
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| Main square bandstand |
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| Town hall - we think |
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| Bloke with club - not for baseball |
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| Pamplona balconies on the bull route |
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| The corral where they start from on the 300m blast through the tiny steets |
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| Practising |
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| The bull ring |
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| Huge statue in middle of new town |
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| Smile! |
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| Oooft! |
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| Scary baby.. |
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| Secret word switches off scary baby. |
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| Compostella for bikes route |
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| Our balcony |
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