“Anything touched by Hemingway,” guide Francisco Glaria said on the way to Café Iruna in Pamplona, Spain, “is untouchable.”
Stop for a Drink with Hemingway at the Café Iruna
“We had coffee at Café Iruna, seated at comfortable armchairs,” Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises, “while from the fresh shadow of the arcades we contemplated the Grand Plaza.”
Café Iruna, like all parts of Pamplona visited by Hemingway, has a plaque on the wall.
The ornate Café from 1888 is still a good coffee stop on the Plaza de Castillo. Or pop into its smoky bar next door and sidle up to a life-size bronze of “Papa” Hemingway.
Just across the Calle Estefeta from Café Iruna, along the Bull Run route, is Hemingway’s home away from home for each of his nine visits to Pamplona, the Gran Hotel La Perla.
Hemingway Made the Medieval Running of the Bulls Famous
He first arrived in 1923 as a reporter for the Toronto Star, booked into Room 217 of Hotel La Perla, and opened his balcony doors to look down on the early-morning mayhem of men and bulls racing through the city canyon.
The origins of the Bull Run are medieval. Drivers would bring the bulls from outside the city walls into the public square, which served as the bullring. Young men ran in front of the bulls, a dangerous stunt repeatedly outlawed. But they persisted, and finally the city sanctioned the madness as part of the festival of San Fermin, patron saint for the region of Navarre.
“Many cities did this, but Pamplona is just lucky that Hemingway came here and made us world famous,” Glaria said. Hemingway wove the bulls and bullfights into his 1926 novel Fiesta, published in the U.S. as The Sun Also Rises.
Hemingway traveled to Pamplona nine times through 1959, suddenly elbowing his way through vast crowds drawn by his book.
Hemingway’s ghost hovers everywhere in Pamplona, from bars where he liked to bend his elbow and tell his tales, to statues - sometimes in bars - and the Paseo de Hemingway that runs right by the bullring.
Stay in Hemingway’s Room at La Perla Hotel - Risk a Haunting
No one changes anything that Hemingway might have touched, and that’s certainly true at his old hotel, Gran Hotel La Perla in the heart of the city.
His trusty Room 217 is now 201 after remodeling, but he would certainly recognize his rococo twin beds, French settee and carved plaster moldings above his head.
His two balconies still look down on the Estafeta, that narrow cobblestone street that tunnels man and beast into old town during the San Fermines stampede. He first leaned over the edge to watch in 1923.
La Perla was already a grand dame when Hemingway stayed here, being built in 1881. Now the fourth generation of the same family runs Pamplona’s oldest hotel and her only five-star, and one of the partners lends his collection of Hemingway books for a display in the writer’s room.
Mere mortals can have the same view when they book Hemingway’s room. Hemingway’s Room 201 is $655 per night, plus tax. During the festival of San Fermin, it’s $2,251 per night with a five-night minimum stay.
Hemingway Bust Dominates the Bullring Plaza in Pamplona
The Running of the Bulls route takes you, naturally, to the bullring—and just as naturally, to a giant bust of Hemingway, rugged and resolute in his trademark fisherman’s sweater. This is as much a pilgrimage spot as the bullring itself during San Fermines.
Before the Bull Run, runners stop by the statue and tie a giant red kerchief around Papa’s stony neck. “It’s like saying, ‘Now the party can begin,'” Glaria said.
Pamplona’s bullring is the third-largest in the world, after Mexico City’s and Madrid’s. It was opened in 1922 by Casa de Misericordia, a charity for elderly people without family or funds. It’s been expanded over the years and now seats 19,700.
Inside the ring, Hemingway’s seat was in the No. 2 area, reserved, then as now, for dignitaries.
How to Trace Hemingway’s Ghost During the Running of the Bulls
San Fermines festival is July 7-14.
Click for fine dining in Pamplona.
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Betsa Marsh - Betsa Marsh's passion is the UK, but she'll go anywhere for a good story. Her piece on the San Antonio Toilet Seat Museum won the Lowell ...
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