No Bull. Literary.

So, on the way into Pamplona, I asked Carol, somewhat rhetorically, if she thought local car dealer ads included the promise of "no bull!"  If not, perhaps I should open an advertising agency here.

After Wednesday's sleep-in till 9:58 am, I rose at the more reasonable hour of 5:15 am to blog and do work.  We left the house around 10am, and headed north to Pamplona.  The drive was through some pretty, yet unremarkable country, so I won't remark upon it.

Pamplona was larger than we expected; a city of nearly 200,000.  It took some time to get into the city itself and find parking.  The good news is we found parking on a busy street.   The bad news is, it was well down below the main part of the old city.

So we followed the windy, uphill directions to the Cathedral.  Dating from the 1400s, the Cathedral is huge.  And, allows pictures inside.  The best parts were the cloisters and the side buildings, including the chapel and the refectory.  The famed Kings of Navarre were crowned there, and the early modern state Parliament even met there.

They have an interesting museum that compared what was happening in the bigger world to what was happening at the cathedral.

Afterwards, we headed to the back of the Cathedral to find some of the city walls and defensive fortifications.  The mountains surrounding the city are spectacular, so we picked an old part of the fort that had been turned into a restaurant to eat outside.  We ate some fine tapas and admired the view.

Next on the agenda was finding the Town Hall and the route of the running of the bulls.  We weren't there anytime close to Festival of San Fermin, named after a local early Catholic bishop who was beheaded (and thus martyred) in France.  On our way down to Town Hall from the Cathedral, Carol figured out that we were walking on part of the Camino de Santiago.  (The Camino has multiple routes, but more about next week.)  The Town Hall is an amazing Baroque building (see pictures below) with ornate iron work and statues of wonder on the top of the building.

In the middle of town is another ancient church with towers, but it was not open to the public at that time of day, so we found the start of the Encierro (running of the bulls) and walked it, taking the turns where the bulls and people often wipe out, as well as the long uphill stretch of Estafeta Street.  It's not the same as the festival time, obviously, but it was evocative enough that I wanted to come back and run with the bulls.  You know, until I thought about my bad right ankle and not having much of a left knee.  I prefer to live, so I will pass on that fleeting thought.

We took the self-guided bull ring tour, which was worth it solely so we could stand on the bull ring sand and hold a cape.  In addition, there two good short films about the running of the bulls, and one short flick showing the early lives of bulls.  Watching the films, the running looks like madness.

Our last stop was for ice cream in Castillo Plaza, a large square with restaurants and bars.  As we finished our ice cream, it was time to bade farewell to Pamplona.