When its streets aren’t full of thousands of people fleeing several angry bulls, Pamplona is a pure delight  

Walking is not an uncommon practice in any city; in fact we all do it. Hiking, though, is another matter, and one to make you look twice. Which is what I do when I see a man, a woman and three children, all very obviously in hiking gear and leading two well-laden mules along a Pamplona street.

No one else stops to stare, which makes me think this sort of behaviour must be the norm in this elegant, affluent northern Spanish city. Then I see the scarves tied around the hikers’ necks and, as they pass, the shells decorating their bags.

That explains all: they are pilgrims, walking the Camino de Santiago, and their route from France to the north-western tip of Spain has taken them through the capital of Navarra province.

Walking is not an uncommon practice in any city; in fact we all do it. Hiking, though, is another matter, and one to make you look twice. Which is what I do when I see a man, a woman and three children, all very obviously in hiking gear and leading two well-laden mules along a Pamplona street.

No one else stops to stare, which makes me think this sort of behaviour must be the norm in this elegant, affluent northern Spanish city. Then I see the scarves tied around the hikers’ necks and, as they pass, the shells decorating their bags.

That explains all: they are pilgrims, walking the Camino de Santiago, and their route from France to the north-western tip of Spain has taken them through the capital of Navarra province.

This curious scene serves as a reminder that, for 51 weeks of the year, Pamplona gets on with life in its own, unhurried way, welcoming peregrinos, as the pilgrims are known, and tourists, absorbing them into the everyday life of the city.
The remaining week is, of course, given over to San Fermin when, for eight days in July, Pamplona becomes the party capital of the world and hundreds of thousands of revellers converge to drink, party, run with the bulls and drink some more.
If all you’ve ever seen of Pamplona is the inside of a crowded bar or a cramped piece of grass doubling as your bed for the week, or a flash of masonry as you try to keep up with (or keep away from) a few tons of troubled beef on the hoof, it’s worth another look.
In fact, the city rewards handsomely a few days spent strolling, browsing and – of course – tucking into the classy cuisine that seems to come as standard in even the humbler bars.
The Basque Country’s influence stretches beyond its political borders; the Navarros may be fiercely independent of other provinces, but they switch easily between Castilian Spanish and the baffling complexities of the Basque language.
And it’s natural that they should embrace the best things about the region to the north – the freshest seafood and a love of pinchos, that tastier version of tapas.
San Sebastián and Bilbao may draw all the culinary headlines, but Pamplona is just as much a gourmet’s delight. And pinchos have become such an art form that the city holds a “miniature cuisine” festival every year.
The consequence is that the best recipes are adopted and adapted throughout the city and the standard remains uniformly high. Restaurants such as Baserri and bars such as Gaucho are based around pinchos, and what they can do with a morsel of pork cheeks, foie, mushrooms or creamed sea urchin defies belief.
Pamplona’s old town – enclosed on three sides by vast defensive walls – is still the centre of city life. This is where the medieval burghs of Navarreria, San Cernin and San Nicolás were established, with their very different layouts and characters.
There’s no hint nowadays that these neighbouring districts were virtually at war until King Carlos III united them in the 15th century. They still retain their different airs, though – and the best way to see Pamplona and understand its history from Roman times until the present day is by strolling through its streets.
The very heart of the city is the Plaza del Castillo, a broad, tree-lined square with a bandstand at its centre and a 200-year-old architectural mix on its four sides. The plaza is all about leisure: it’s a meeting-point for locals and a place to watch the world go by from the bars and cafes that set their tables and chairs out along its edges.
Café Iruña is the best known – its fin de siecle interiors forever associated with Hemingway, whose novel The Sun Also Rises is single-handedly responsible for San Fermin’s worldwide renown.
The nearby Casino Principal is equally lovely, especially the upstairs lounge, but there are a dozen or more places to take your time over a coffee or a local wine.
The old town has its share of beguiling churches, an impressive town hall and a couple of palaces, but the cathedral – or rather its interior – is the one unmissable sight.
Tucked into the eastern flank of the old town, its not unattractive façade hides a stunning Gothic cloister, beautiful, painted vaulted ceilings and the alabaster tomb of Carlos III and his queen, Leonor.
Back in the secular city, the watchtower behind the cathedral houses a friendly bar. The walls beyond, overlooking the Arga river and on towards the Pyrennees, give some idea of the scale of work that went into the 16th-century fortification of the city.
You can walk much of the walls, taking in the vast park of the Taconera Gardens, which enclose the city’s east and north flanks, and the Ciudadela, a star-shaped, inner fortress that has been grassed-over and serves nowadays as an all-purpose open space.
The Taconera is a mix of lawn and formal gardens (and there’s even an excellent Viennese café), though there’s also a small “zoo” with deer, goats, peacocks and other exotic birds tucked into part of the moat.
The modern city, with its planetarium, car manufacturing plant, sprawling suburbs and two universities, doesn’t really impact on the visitor – though its legacy does.
Visit in term time and the presence of 30,000 students is easily felt as they throng the streets, moving from bar to bar in small, cheery knots. Like everyone else, the students follow the route of the encierro – the running of the bulls – which, outside July, is a very pleasant experience.
The main part of the route, Calle San Domingo and particularly Calle Estafeta, is legendary for the number and quality of the bars; bull or no bull, you’d never get from one end to the other standing up if you stopped off at every one.
The encierro and the Pilgrim’s Way coincide near the Casa Consistorial – the town hall – and run in tandem for a couple of hundred metres. It’s encouraging to see backpack-carrying peregrinos stopping off for a quick beer on the Road to Santiago – a kind of recognition that this is where the spiritual and temporal worlds coincide and raise a glass to each other.