The Navarre region of Spain

The largest city of Navarre and home to almost half its people, Pamplona is the city of the festival of San Fermín, better known to the rest of the world as the Running of the Bulls. Every morning of the festival brings an "encierro," or a parade of sorts where Spaniards and visitors alike can be chased down the city streets and into an arena by angry bulls. The festival lasts from July 6th to 14th. If you wish to partake of an encierro, be sure to not show up drunk. The police keep a close eye on the gathering crowd on people wishing to be chased, and routinely pluck out the obviously intoxicated for their own safety. Outside of the festival, Pamplona is a lovely, green city with a fine old city centre. A pleasant place with a serious current of testosterone, it is unsurprising that Ernest Hemmingway wrote so much about Pamplona in "The Sun Also Rises."

Navarre is also a destination for hikers. Pan-European hiking routes enter Spain from the Pyrenees via Navarre, and the region is also the host of a section of the Way of St. James. A pilgrimage route that ends in Galicia at a cathedral housing the earthly remains of the Apostle James, the Way of St. James combines cross-country hiking with a spiritual journey and a stroll through Navarre's medieval legacy.

This legacy includes enough old churches and castles to satisfy the historical tourist or Middle Ages-lover in anyone. Take the Monastery of San Salvador of Leyre, which dates back to the 9th century. The current buildings are still intact and date to the 11th century. Sited on the Way of St. James, it is one of the more impressive compounds of its kind in all of Spain. For those with more martial interests, there is the impressive castle at Javier, in east-central Navarre.

A visitor to Navarre is almost as likely to encounter a Basque-speaker as a Spanish-speaker, and the cooking in the region is essentially Basque in origin. However, as Navarre is landlocked, there is much less emphasis on seafood. For a light snack there are pinchos, or finger-sandwich bits of bread with anything from anchovies to roasted peppers pinned on. Navarre cuisine is also fond of its grilled or roasted meat, and that meat is very good indeed. The combination of highland pastures and the green Ebro River Valley offer some excellent pasturage for raising livestock. Navarre has a local liquor called patxaran, made from blackthorn and with an alcohol content of about 30%.

Pamplona is connected to the rest of Spain by road and by high-speed rail through Saragossa, Madrid and Barcelona. However, there are no airports in the region. If you wish to visit Navarre, you must fly to either Barcelona, Madrid or to another airport in a neighbouring region, and either rent a car, catch a bus or take the train from there.