San Fermin Festival Day

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Today was a very long day. On the bus at 5:50am to head into the city to get to our balcony to watch the start of the festivities at 8am. As we reach the city centre all we could see were steams of very wary tired and happy people leaving the city after yesterday’s celebrations and a well-oiled clean-up machine in full flight preparing the city for another onslaught of revellers today. The balcony we have booked is on the second floor at one of the bends mid-way through the course and we had to be there before 6.45am otherwise the streets are closed off. In a way just watching the people arriving at their balcony and the clean-up process on the street below of both rubbish and people was as exciting as the run. 8am and the rocket is fired signalling the release of the herd and the people start to run, 6 minutes later another rocket is fired and the run is all over then the partying in the streets start. After watching people from the balcony for a while we then joined them to walk the street and that in the atmosphere. We found a lovely street up the back of the city near the Cathedral where a lot of locals where congregating for breakfast on long tables in the street. We managed to talk our way into spaces at one of the last free tables, was a great morning with the locals singing and celebrating while the clean-up of the town went on around them. This afternoon we were back to Plaza de Toros for the evening festivities of 3 Matadors (Franciso Marco, Juan Bautista and Alberto Aguilar). Thanks goodness we had seats in the shaded side of the arena as was 34^o C today and the sunny side was in full on party mode. What an atmosphere and the people watching were fantastic. After a short walk around to soak up some more of the festivities we headed back out to the area we were staying at and found a local restaurant for a wonderful meal of local Basque cuisine of pork and potatoes only thing was that it was now 10pm and the restaurant was only just starting to get busy. Not sure if I can get use to eating dinner so late.

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Comments

[Linde]

Bull fight
Were you at the bull fight where the matador was killed by bull? Apparently first in many years.

[Greg and Rose]

No
No this was the day before we went, there was a close encounter on the day we were there but only costume damage and punctured leg.