Spain/Navarre: Pamplona – San Fermin Festival
San Fermin Festival (aka Running of the Bulls) transforms the sleepy town of Pamplona in fiercely independent region of Navarre into a party scene rivaling Rio’s Carnaval or Belgium’s Tomorrowland or Ibiza’s beach clubbing (clearly on my own personal comparative scale). Over 1 million people come to see this! For a whole week in the middle of the summer Pamplona gets packed to the rim with red-and-white clad partygoes – everybody wears white or red clothing, red sashes around the waste and red ties around their neck (kind of young pioneers used to do in the Soviet Union but without communism). Beers flowing, tapas getting swallowed, everybody dancing and singing, and street band processions clog the already narrow town streets. For the entire festival – Pamplona doesn’t sleep!
