Camino de Santiago
On day two in Pamplona we actually slept in until 8AM this morning. The “free” breakfast consisted of toast with jelly, coffee, and some juice called multi-fruita, which really left multi-aftertastes.
We visted the Pamplona Cathedral this morning that was beautiful and very moving. For another 3 Euros, I talked the boys into the Cathedral Museo to see excavations, and wonderful sculptures and religious items connected to the Cathedral. The Cathedral was started in 1075, and over the next 500 years was burned, demolished in war, burned again, etc until the final version withstood the test of time.
King Carlos and his wife made out of alabaster:
We missed the annual running of the bulls by a few months, but we did walk the route.
The town of Hemingway:
Hard to believe that dozens of bulls, and hundreds (pick one, or any combination) of crazy, pious, drunk, stupid )people race ahead of these bulls down these crazy small streets. What a spectacle that must be!
Hemingway fell in love with Pamplona and visited here often. He often refers to Cafe Iruna in his book The Sun Also Rises. Terry the teacher has read it, and he’s said everyone dies at the end, so that does not sound like an “Andy” read. We had nice dinner there at Cafe Iruna last night with some Camino friends.
Many hotels and bars boast that “Hemingway slept here”.
inside Cafe Iruna. First building in Pamplona to get electric lighting!
Hemingway was really into bulls, bullfighting, and matadors. The guidebooks say he often wrote about bravery and death in his novels. One of my favorite quotes of his was “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters”. That’s some powerful shit. This, coming from a 61 year old who, getting a free tapas or pintxos with my beer absolutely makes my day. Sometimes I even run with scissors.