Travels Through History - Northern Spain: From Valencia to Vigo

By Julian Worker

This book is a travelogue about the cities of northern Spain. I travelled to Pamplona, Burgos, San Sebastian, Valladolid, Segovia, Leon, Gijon, Oviedo, Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra, A Coruna, and Vigo on board the fast, modern trains of the Spanish railways. I describe the history of these places along with the sights seen plus some food and drink options available to all. The cities range from the familiar such as Pamplona with its bull running and Leon with its world-famous cathedral to those not so well-known cities such as Pontevedra with its pedestrianised centre and A Coruna where I saw the world's oldest lighthouse. There are extra stories about two pilgrimages of my own - to see the modern architecture of Santiago Calatrava in Valencia and to watch Lionel Messi play football in Barcelona.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AG Books
• Release date: Feb 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781789829259

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Travels Through History

Northern Spain

Pamplona – Bull Running

Most people associate Pamplona with the Running of the Bulls – El Encierro in Spanish, part of the Festival of St Fermin which lasts from noon on 6th July to midnight on 14th July. The Bull Running takes place at 8am each day from 7th July to 14th July and was first brought to worldwide attention by Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926. 2,000 people run with the bulls each day.

Four rockets inform the crowd what’s happening with the bulls. They set off the first rocket at 8 a.m. to alert the runners that the gate to the bull’s corral is open. The runners can now run, though if you get too far ahead of the bulls, the spectators will boo you, especially if you reach the bullring without a bull in sight. A second rocket signals all the bulls are free of the corral and are in motion. The third rocket signals all the bulls are in the bullring and the fourth that the bulls are in their corral, marking the end of the bull running event for the bulls at least. For the runners, there is still the excitement of being chased around the bullring by bullocks with padding on their horns.

An encierro comprises six bulls that will fight in the afternoon, six steers that run with the bulls, plus three more steers that follow the herd to encourage any reluctant bulls to continue along the route to their demise.

The release of the bulls occurs near the Piazza Santo Domingo. They take between 2 minutes 30 seconds and 4 minutes to run the 800 metres along a fenced-off course to the bullring. As well as the steers, official pastores or shepherds are on hand with sticks to ensure the bulls don’t lose interest. The reason people come to spectate is to watch the 2,000 people (this is the limit for each day), wearing white tops, white trousers, a red neckerchief, and a red sash around their waist who run with the bulls while bashing them with rolled-up newspapers.

Having seen some local bulls, I doubt any of them would even notice a direct hit from a newspaper, so this hitting is just an act of bravado by the runners, who literally fall over each other to get close. The wonderful sculpture, Encierro, in the city centre shows the perils involved. At each festival, at least one person is seriously injured and 50-100 others suffer non-life-threatening injuries. 15 people have perished in the last 100 years, since records began, mostly by being gored by a 1,100-pound bull.

There is a 90-degree bend called the Estafeta Curve, where El Encierro takes a turn to the right down Calle de la Estafeta after coming along Calle Mercaderes. Known locally as La Curva, the corner of Mercaderes and Estafeta Street is one of the most dangerous sections of El Encierro and not for nothing is it called Dead Man’s Corner. Most bulls will not have come across a 90-degree bend before out in the fields on the edge of the city. Consequently, some bulls run straight on and collide with the wooden barricades, causing the crowd watching behind who thought they were safe to scatter. Other bulls crumple to the ground when their hooves can’t gain purchase on the cobbles. Runners also slip over and get charged by the bulls. Those runners who stay on their feet have to navigate around pointed horns, cloven hooves and stricken humans.

Another risk comes from runners falling and forming a pile at the entrance to the bullring which acts as a funnel as it is much narrower than Calle de la Estafeta. When this happens, runners can suffer from asphyxia and severe contusions. Such a pile-up has occurred at least ten times in the run’s history, the first time was in 1878 and the last in 2013. A runner died of suffocation in 1977 when one of these human heaps formed. When a bull encounters such a pile, they don’t stop, but charge straight into its midst.

Spectators who watched the running of the bulls won’t be able to get into the bullring as it is full of people, so it would be better to go on a different day to see this part of the event.

200 volunteers, mainly from the Red Cross, help with any health issues. 16 posts provide medical attention – one every 50 metres on average – and each post has at least one doctor and a nurse among their personnel. There are also 20 ambulances. This set-up allows the medics to stabilise a gored runner and take them to a hospital in less than 10 minutes.

Legend has it that St Fermín was the son of a Roman Senator in Pamplona in the 3rd Century. St Honestus, a disciple of St Cernin, converted Fermin to Christianity and St Cernin baptised him. The Church ordained Fermin as a priest in Toulouse before he returned to Pamplona as its first bishop. On a later preaching tour, the locals beheaded Fermín in Amiens and he became a martyr of the Catholic Church.

Fermin died on 25 September, AD 303. There is no written record of the veneration of St Fermin in Pamplona until the 12th century. St Fermín and St Francis Xavier, are the two patron saints of Navarre. In Pamplona, St Fermín is now sometimes said to have met his end by