Yes, there are just six days left.
San Fermin starts (as always) on 6th July at 12:00 when a rocket is fired from a balcony in the Town Hall.
Everybody here feels excited about the festival; everything is now ready.
Most of the bulls have already arrived and are staying in the stables on the outskirts of the city (you can have a look at those massive animals at the ‘Corrales del Gas’).
If you have a walk through the old town, you will see how the wooden fences which mark the path for the running of the bulls, are being erected.
There is a saying in the city ‘it smells like bull’ to describe the feeling you get during the previous days to the festival.
You can see an unusual number of visitors (in comparison with the rest of the year) in the streets of this small town called Pamplona (or Iruña, as we call it in Basque).
So , what are you waiting for?
Hurry up, pack your things and come here if you do not want to miss one of these things you must experience at least once in a lifetime.

While checking our section ‘What info are you looking for?’ we have seen that a reader named Heather has posed the following questions:
Is there an increased concern about safety during Sanfermin?
Have there been any issues during past festivals?

Well Heather, I can tell you that safety is not a major issue in Pamplona during the festival (nor during the rest of the year).
The only way you might risk your life comes if you decide to run in front of the bulls, otherwise there is not much you should be worried about.

Of course, you have to take care of pickpockets and the like (this is quite logical having in mind that the population of the city almost doubles its size on weekend during the festival).
Still, ours is a midsize town and I can assure you there have never been any crimes or serious offences reported during the festival (no, this is not like Rio de Janeiro in Carnival).

You can go out in the night really safe (if you are a girl for example, and you go out for a drink with another female friend, you do not need to worry about safety, being raped, or anything like that..).
Crime rate in this town is really low and the probability of something bad happening to any visitors is not higher than in their hometowns.
I will not say that everything is perfect, but the city is pretty safe and also police is not corrupt and you can trust them (well, to the same extent as in other western countries).

Do any of the readers have any comments or would like to share with us their personnal experiences about his topic?

My dear and unknown foreign reader,

Sometimes I wonder why people from the other side of the world are coming to our city in order to run the bulls. Do you know or understand why people from Pamplona do that? Do you admire our traditions and want to imitate us? Or are you a simple fan of risky sports like rafting or so and want to have a go at the ‘Encierro’?

Sincerely I wouldn’t travel to jump into the Krakatoa vulcano, for instance, although I love native traditions.

So why do you come here? Does blood attract you? Do you really know that you may loose your life or make somebody else to loose it?

If you see the photo below, are you still interested in running or are you even more interested?

Please, let me know your opinion, dear reader…

Toro. This is the Spanish word for bull. A short and strong word. During San Fermin festival, bull is the King in Pamplona. Although the festival is dedicated to San Fermin, everything goes around the bull. A week before San Fermin bulls arrive in Pamplona from their homelands in Castilla and Andalucia. You may visit those splendid animals at Corrales del Gas, Errotazar Street. They spend their last days in Pamplona in a beautiful and quiet place close to Arga River. When you see them so relaxed, it is difficult to realize how fierce and brave may be in streets and bullring.

The night before their running, bulls, acompanied by oxen, go from Corrales del Gas to Corralillos de Santo Domingo. They will sleep there and at 8 o’clock in the morning, they will play the main role in the most famous race in world. Pamplona stops breathing during the two or three minutes bulls need to arrive at the Bull Ring.

Those six bulls will die at the arena that afternoon. Lots of runners will attend this ceremony as spectators at the Bull Ring.

This ancestral rite about life and death will be completed some days later, when you eat a delicious ‘estofado de toro’, bull meat cooked with potatoes, carrots, spices and some other secret ingredients.

You may think we are cruel and behave as barbarians, so let’s discuss about it…

If you only have references about San Fermin based on TV or Hemingway’s ‘The sun…’ you may not have noticed one of the main elements in our fiesta: Peñas.

What does that strange word mean? Peñas are a kind of clubs in Pamplona where you may go in, only if you are a member. But during Sanfermines, Peñas are open for anybody, no matter if you are native or foreigner, boy or girl, leftish or rightish, poor or rich. These Peñas have bars in the Old Part of Iruña*, where members of these clubs work as waiters. As they are not profesionals, drink prices are lower than in normal bars and the atmosphere is very funny and popular.

Apart from these bars, each Peña has its own music band you may find playing on streets, surrounded by a lot of people and going from bar to bar, singing and dancing, following a banner.

If you respect musicians and rest of people from Peña, you will be accepted and perhaps you may have the best hours in your life.

For further information (in Basque and Spanish languages), consult http://websanfermin.com/web/index.htm

*Iruña is the Basque name of Pamplona.

Come dice il tema del rinomato compositore Turrinni: Tre cose abbiamo a Pamplona che non e possibile trovare a Madrid, une ragazze come il sole e il famoso txakolí, e lo meglior del mondo, la festa de San Fermín.

Allora, questa premissa e corretta, ma abbiamo un grande problema con la prima parte della composizione: le ragazze sono come il sole, ma… come fare la constatazione?

In questo articolo vai trovare una formula che non e sufficiente, ma altamente necessaria: per ottenere un trionfo amoroso con una pamplonesa, tu devi essere un saltimbanco.

Il mero fatto di essere transalpino gia e un punto a favore, e si la tua maglia e tanto piccola quanto la della squadra azzurra, per que ti voglio contare.
Il rostro abronzatto per il sole, la tua melena sventolante, le muscoli delineati, una voce profonda e suggerente, lo sguardo levemente strabico, … tutto questo e molto importante, ma insisto, non serve a niente si non hai destrezza acrobatica.

Tu puoi stare pensando, per che devo essere un acrobata?

Molto facile, caro amico. Abbi fede alla nostra esperienza di molti anni. ¿Come aspiri a sorpassare il perimetro de securezza chi formano le amiche della ragazza senza fare una cabriola mortale con duplice tirabuzzone e mezzo?

It’s a very common question: what can I do at Sanfermin?.
It really looks like an easy question, but the answer could be very, very large.
At first, if you are considering coming to Sanfermin, you can ask yourself: why do I want to go there?.
There are a lot of reasons to come to Pamplona:
In some cases, it is just to get off with girls or boys …(be aware, this place is the real spiritual reserve of the western world!). Still, the chance of making out with girls or boys, if you are a foreigner, is much higher than if you are from Pamplona.
Sometimes, it is because a lot of people think this is a lawless city during the festival (like a farwest town) and you can do everything you please. Be careful!!! because you are wrong. There are far more police officers in the city than during the rest of the year. You know, there are a lot of visitors who come here on business (pickpockets and the like…), and not only that, if a policeman sees you pissing in the street, you will definitely be fined (but it is better not to speak about that, if you have ever been here you may remember the disgusting smell of the streets in a hot morning, even though cleaners work very hard every single day).
Some other times, it is because you want to know the atmosphere, and compare it with other Spanish festivals such as Fallas in Valencia, April fair in Seville or Pilar in Saragossa. I must tell people that want to compare it with Fallas, that there are not so many rockets and firecrackers here as in Fallas, even though we have fireworks every night and the best Valencian fireworker comes to display his show. To the people who want to compare it with the April fair, I will say that you will fit in our festival by yourself and that you needn’t be a member of any society. To those who want to compare it with the Pilar, just one thing… Go! Osasuna Go!. (The best soccer team all over the world).
You can also say that you are coming to Sanfermines to learn or improve your Spanish, but this is a very poor excuse… you can learn Spanish another time and in another place.

There is a lot of controversy here in Pamplona about how to regulate or put a limit to the number of participants in the running of the bulls.
As you may know, anyone who wants to take part in it does not need to apply for any permissions, as it is open to almost everyone who wants to participate; as long as you comply with some very simple rules such as, for example, not being blind drunk (difficult thing sometimes!), or not carrying bulky things (for example a backpack).
If you want some more information about this, click on the link to the Council’s website.

But let’s keep to the point; the fact that this being an open event, has ended up jeopardizing its own future.
There are so many participants that the bulls are mostly surrounded by people (especially on weekends) and therefore it is getting more and more difficult for the runners to really enjoy the event as the streets are overcrowded.
As a matter of fact, one has to pay as much attention to other runners as to the bulls themselves.
Additionally, live broadcast on TV is attracting a lot of people who do not run for the sake of it, but just because they want to have their fifteen minutes of fame.

So the question is now, who has the right to decide who can run and who can’t? and how can this be done?

It is obvious that Sanfermines (our festival) is very closely connected to Pamplona’s tourist offer. It has always been like that, but the news is that there is a project to extend the duration of the fiesta and cover all year round.

Is it a challenge to measure the popularity of the Sanfermines, or is it a tourist resource to improve the economy of the town?. We all know that money makes the world go round, so why not use the popularity of the festival to promote tourism in Pamplona?.

It is for sure that Sanfermines will not benefit much from it, since Sanfermines is a festival known in the whole world for itself and does not really need to increase its popularity.

Usually we complain on Saturdays during Sanfermines, because of the big amount of visitors (over 200.000 in the first weekend of ‘ 07).

If it becomes even more popular … we will have to organise additional ‘’encierro’’ (running of the bulls) in every neighbourhood of the city, to distribute the more than 3.500 corridors on weekends! … of course of 825 meters each one of them….

It is clear that if we say that one of the key differences with other festivals, as for example the April fair in Seville, is the atmosphere in the street … I don’t know how it will be possible to keep this same atmosphere 365 days a year!. With this, we forget one of the fundamental points of the festival … the people. Bad choice.

Hello everyone!
It is our intention to try and share our own experiences about our festival with those of you who are interested in it and (if possible) answer any questions you may have.
We call this fiesta ‘Sanfermin’, but this name is probably unknown for most of you, as it is not widely used in English to name this event.
You might have heard the expression ‘the running of the bulls’ or something like that on TV last time you saw a crazy bunch of people running in front of six fierce bulls in the streets of Pamplona (yes, that is the name of our old town).
Maybe some of you have even read Hemingway’s ‘The sun also rises’ (a very good description of our festival as it was in the twenties and not really that far from what it is now).
Still, it does not matter how you have heard of it; if you would like to have a go at something different, just come and enjoy the fiesta.