The days at San Fermín Festival starts early, before the sunrise. Festival’s opening ceremony is always at 6th of July 12 p.m. Next 8 mornings after that start before the sunrise while people are gathering in the town before The Running with the Bulls event which starts each day at 8 a.m. And each day ends with the huge fireworks at 11 p.m. until festival is closed in the closing ceremony in Plaza Consistorial at midnight 14th of July.
I was in San Fermín on 13th of July. I had arrived Pamplona late the night before and although I had decent night sleep in my accommodation in local university while listening the parties ongoing in corridors, I had my first light ideas what this festival was about. Spanish people know how to make good red wine or sangria. And when they party, they consume a lot of those…
I left the accommodation early and walked few kilometers to the city center while enjoying still silent streets and beautiful sunrise. During my walk to the city center I saw lot of people sleeping in their cars after night of partying. Few individuals were walking back home from the parties. But otherwise it was still calm before the storm. When getting closer to the city center all suddenly changed. First I was seeing more and more people still hanging around all overs the streets, already drunk and still drinking. There were empty beer bottles and plastic mugs all over. But still the smell took me by surprise. Imagine thousands of people partying all night long in the streets and still continuing. Many of them were still drunk and maybe some of them have been sleeping few hours and now had the hangover. And although I had the decent night sleep and hadn’t consumed any alcohol the night before, suddenly I felt like I had the hangover as well. Ugh. I don't know what I was expecting, but not this...
