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Foreigners flock back to Spain bull-running fiesta
Spain's famous bull-running festival, which dates back to medieval times, features concerts, religious processions, nightly fireworks, and round-the-clock drinking.
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A participant is overthrown by a young cow after the 'encierro' (bull-run) of the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, northern Spain on July 7, 2022. (AFP/Jose Jordan)
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s soon as Peter Millington heard that Spain's San Fermin fiesta would be held again this year after a two-year absence due to the pandemic, he started making travel arrangements.
The 38-year-old British financial advisor has been a regular at Spain's most famous bull-running festival since he first attended the annual event in Pamplona as a university student, and was keen to return.
Millington said he booked his flight from London and made hotel reservations in February, just days after Pamplona's mayor announced that San Fermin would likely go ahead this year.
"There is nothing else like it, it's totally unique," he told AFP in the northern Spanish city on Wednesday when the nine-day fiesta officially opened.
"I had to be here," he added, gesturing towards the sea of revellers merrily drinking around him, most dressed in the traditional all-white outfit and red scarf.
The festival, immortalised in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, has long drawn large numbers of foreigners, including many like Millington who return year after year.
And with global travel on the rebound since most coronavirus pandemic restrictions have been lifted, the foreign visitors were back in force in Pamplona this year.
