The festival of San Fermín is a week-long celebration held every year in the city of Pamplona, Navarre, Spain. The celebrations begin on the sixth of July and starts with setting off fireworks or chupinazo, and continues until midnight, on the fourteenth of July, with the singing of the Pobre de Mí. However its most famous event is the encierro, or the running of the bulls, at 8:00 AM from the 7th of July to the 14th July, but the festival involves many other traditional and folkloric events. It is known locally as Sanfermines and is held in honour of Saint Fermin, one of the patron Saints of Navarre . I attended the festival in the summer of 1987 ; ran with the bulls and drank the sangria and wine , tempted by the prose of Hemmingway . ‘ Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters’ – The Sun Also Rises 1926.
