The festival of San Fermin, held in Pamplona, Spain, occurs yearly from the 6th to the 14th of July. This festival is perhaps best known for the traditional running of the bulls, a daily event during the festival in which six bulls and six steers chase hundreds of people down a half mile stretch of road in Pamplona. The 9-day celebration includes many other traditional, folkloric events though and is Spain's largest fiesta, attracting over 1,000,000 people.
THE EVENTS OF SAN FERMIN
Chupinazo marks the beginning of the festival. The single rocket, set off at noon on the 6th of July, officially begins the week long celebration.
San Fermin Procession is the most important single event in the festival. Held on the 7th of July, the procession sees thousands of people process down the streets of Pamplona accompanied by a statue of San Fermin, the patron saint of Navarre.
Bull Fights are held daily. The six bulls driven to the ring that day during the day's running of the bulls are killed during the afternoon's bull fighting. Despite the massive size of the bull fighting ring, tickets to this daily event are hard to come by.
Parade of gigantes y cabezudos (giants and big-heads) is a daily, morning parade. The parade includes 8 150 year old giant figures representing 4 pairs of kings and queens of 4 different races and places. The remaining 17 figures in the parade include 6 kilikis and 5 big-heads (human, caricature type beings) and 6 zaldikos (horses with rider).
Pobre de Mi (poor me) is the closing event of the week long fiesta. The people of Pamplona gather in the town Plaza at midnight and sing the traditional, mournful pobre de mi song.
San Fermin
Which part of the festival sounds like the most fun to you? Would you want to run down the streets with the bulls?
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