Watch running of bulls from Hemingway’s suite

Author’s room costs more than $3,700 Cdn a night

PAMPLONA, Spain — A festival held every July in this northern Spanish city has become one of the most famous in the world, thanks to one of the most wellknown writers in the world.

Ernest Hemingway described the running of the bulls at the Festival of San Fermin in his novel The Sun Also Rises.

Each year, hundreds of thousands come to Pamplona to watch a smaller number of risk-takers tempt fate in front of the piercingly sharp horns of bulls headed for death.

Hemingway first came to Pamplona in 1923 and described the festival like this: “A spectacle capable of getting you out of bed at half past five in the morning for several days in a row.”

As Hemingway knew, the party starts early and runs late during the festival.

Tourists who come for the festival, or at other times of year, can visit Hemingway haunts such as the Café Iruna or the Gran Hotel La Perla, where Hemingway frequently stayed and where his usual room has been refurbished to look as it did when he spent time there.

That is, except for the bathroom, which is luxurious and modern.

La Perla (granhotellaperla.com) is the only five-star hotel in town, and if you want to stay in Hemingway’s suite during San Fermin, it will cost you a pretty penny.

Besides its literary history, the room has a balcony overlooking Estafeta Street, where the bulls and the runners are nearly close enough for guests to see them sweat. Even at 2,750 euros (about $3,736 Cdn) per night, the Hemingway Suite is booked for the opening days of the festival. But at the time of publication, the suite was available for the last three nights of the festival: July 12, 13 and 14.

So if you want to watch men named Nick or Jake or Rick look straight at death, and drink beer as the sun rises on the Plaza Castillo, and write prose that is short and fine and strong, this might be for you.