Pamplona

Overview

Pamplona is the capital of Navarre, a fortified city on a bluff above the river Arga where the Camino Francés arrives from the Pyrenees and where, for nine days every July, fighting bulls run through the old town at eight in the morning. Around 208,000 people live inside the municipality and roughly 319,000 across the metropolitan area, which makes it a manageable two-day city outside fiesta week and an unmanageable one during it.

The city sits at 450 metres in a basin between the mountains of northern Navarre and the Ebro valley to the south. The Roman general Pompey founded it as Pompaelo around 75 BC during the Sertorian Wars; the Basque name, Iruña, simply means “the city”. Pamplona marked the 2,100th anniversary of that foundation in 2025.

Two layers of military engineering still set the shape of the place: the medieval walls along the bluff, and the pentagonal citadel begun under Philip II. The city stayed physically locked inside its ramparts until 1915, when the walls on the southern side came down and the modern grid could finally spread; industry followed, and the Volkswagen plant at Landaben has been the biggest single employer since 1966.

Two days covers the cathedral, the citadel, the Museo de Navarra and a long pintxo crawl in the old town. A third day buys you a walk out along the Arga or a bus into the Pyrenean valleys. If you are coming for San Fermín itself, plan in years rather than days: regulars book the following year’s bed before they go home.

Neighbourhoods

Pamplona covers about 25 km², and almost everything a visitor wants sits within a half-hour walk of the cathedral. The walls fixed the shape of the old town; when the southern ramparts came down in 1915 the city finally spread onto the plain, and everything south of Plaza del Castillo is younger than that.

Casco Antiguo

The medieval core on the bluff, grown from three separate walled burgos: San Cernin, the Frankish merchant quarter around Calle Mayor; San Nicolás, the Navarrese quarter; and the cathedral precinct on the eastern lip above the Arga. Tight streets, granite paving, and a bar every few metres. The encierro runs through its eastern half, the Museo de Navarra sits at its northern foot, and Plaza del Castillo closes it off to the south. This is where most visitors stay and where nobody sleeps during fiesta.

Ensanche

The early twentieth-century grid laid out on the ground the walls used to occupy, running south from Plaza del Castillo towards the citadel. Avenida Carlos III is the commercial spine, with the Palacio de Navarra, seat of the regional government, at its northern end. Broad pavements, banks and chain shops at street level, and a second pintxo circuit in the side streets that locals use more than tourists do. Ten minutes on foot to the cathedral, five to the bullring.

Iturrama and the university edge

The 1960s and 1970s housing blocks south and west of the citadel, laid out on wide avenues. The University of Navarra, founded in 1952, has its campus here, which keeps a student population in the bars and the rents lower than in the centre. Not much to see, but a twenty-minute walk to Plaza del Castillo and a sensible place to look for a cheaper bed.

Rochapea and the Arga

The riverside district below the northern walls, reached by dropping down from the Portal de Francia. Residential, unremarkable at street level, but the Parque Fluvial path along both banks of the Arga is the city’s best flat walk or cycle, and it runs out of town in either direction. Locals fill it at weekends.

The satellite towns

Burlada, Berriozar, Barañáin and Villava are separate municipalities that have grown into a continuous built-up area with Pamplona, and together they account for most of the difference between the city’s 208,000 residents and the metropolitan 319,000. Almost entirely residential. They matter to visitors only as a fallback for beds during San Fermín, with a bus ride into the centre attached.

See & do

Catedral de Santa María la Real

Mostly fourteenth and fifteenth-century Gothic behind a Neoclassical façade that Ventura Rodríguez finished in 1799. The cloister is the reason to go, along with the alabaster tomb of Carlos III the Noble and his wife Leonor in the middle of the nave. The Occidens exhibition in the adjoining buildings unpicks the site’s archaeological layers, Roman upward. The museum visit runs Monday to Saturday 10:30 to 19:00 from late March, last entry 18:00, and 10:30 to 17:00 in autumn and winter with last entry at 16:00; it is closed on Sundays. The entrance is on Calle Curia.

Ciudadela and the walls

Philip II ordered the citadel in 1571 and it took until 1645 to finish, to a design by the military engineer Giacomo Palearo, known as el Fratín, with the viceroy Vespasiano Gonzaga involved in the works. It is a five-pointed star with bastions named San Antón, El Real, Santa María, Santiago and Victoria; the two facing the city centre were partly demolished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to let Pamplona expand.

The Centro de Interpretación de las Fortificaciones at the Fortín de San Bartolomé, on Calle Emilio Arrieta, explains how the medieval and bastioned layers fit together. Admission is free, but check before you walk over: the city currently lists the centre as closed.

The old town and the encierro route

The medieval core is small, dense and full of bars, and it is also the racetrack. The encierro covers 875 metres through four streets, Santo Domingo, Ayuntamiento, Mercaderes and Estafeta, and ends inside the bullring. Walk it in reverse on any ordinary morning and the geometry makes sense: the uphill start out of the corrals, the ninety-degree turn from Mercaderes into Estafeta where the herd loses its footing, then the long straight and the funnel into the ring.

Espacio SanFermín and the Plaza de Toros

The city’s permanent San Fermín centre sits on Calle Santo Domingo, next to the corrals where the bulls are penned overnight. It is free, open Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 14:00 and 15:00 to 17:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 14:00, and runs an immersive audiovisual room plus a display on the fiesta’s origins, dress and music, in Spanish, Basque, English and French. Twenty to thirty minutes is enough.

The bullring at the other end of the route was built in 1922 to a design by Francisco Urcola, remodelled by Rafael Moneo in 1966, and holds 19,720; by capacity it is among the largest in the world and it fills more reliably than any other ring in Spain.

Museo de Navarra

The regional museum occupies a sixteenth-century former hospital at Calle Santo Domingo 47, at the bottom of the encierro hill. Roman floor pavements, Romanesque capitals from the cathedral cloister, the carved-ivory Casket of Leyre and a Goya portrait are the headline holdings. Open Tuesday to Saturday 09:30 to 14:00 and 17:00 to 19:00, Sundays and public holidays 11:00 to 14:00, closed Mondays; €2 general and €1 reduced.

Plaza del Castillo and Café Iruña

The arcaded square at the southern edge of the old town is where the city sits down. Café Iruña, under the colonnade, opened on 2 July 1888 and was the first business in Pamplona with electric light. Hemingway’s characters use it as their base camp in The Sun Also Rises, and a life-size bronze of him leans on the bar in a corner of the café set aside for the purpose.

Churches and the Camino

San Saturnino and San Nicolás are the two fortified thirteenth-century parish churches of the old town, built when a church still had to hold a siege. Their bell towers are the easiest landmarks to navigate by. The Camino Francés enters through the Portal de Francia on the northern wall, crosses the old town, and leaves westward; the public pilgrim hostel, the Albergue de Peregrinos Jesús y María, is at Calle Compañía 4.

Food & drink

Navarrese cooking sits between the Basque coast and the Ebro valley, and Pamplona gets both: vegetables from the irrigated flats of the Ribera to the south, lamb and sheep’s cheese from the Pyrenean pastures to the north, salt cod from the old inland trade. The pintxo bar is the default format, and Calle San Nicolás is the street with the highest concentration of them.

Pintxos

The grammar is Basque: small plates laid out along the bar or cooked to order from a blackboard, one at a time, with a zurito of beer or a small glass of wine, settled up at the end. Pamplona leans warm and cooked rather than cold and skewered, so expect more small casseroles and fried things than open sandwiches. Budget roughly €2.50 to €4 a piece and four or five for a meal. Calle San Nicolás and Calle Estafeta in the old town are the classic circuit; Calle Jarauta runs off the same block and is busier with locals.

Bacalao and ajoarriero

Salt cod is the regional staple and ajoarriero, the muleteers’ version, is the dish to look for: cod shredded and stewed down with garlic, dried peppers, tomato and paprika. Grander kitchens add crayfish or lobster. Any traditional dining room in the old town will have it on the menu, usually as a starter rather than a main.

Chistorra

The thin, fast-cured red pork sausage of Navarre, heavy with paprika, fried in short lengths and served on bread or with eggs. It is a breakfast food and a bar snack in equal measure, and during fiesta a bocadillo de chistorra from a street stall is what people eat at four in the morning.

Vegetables from the Ribera

Navarre’s market gardening is the serious part of its food reputation. White asparagus arrives fresh in May and June and is otherwise sold in jars; the small artichokes of Tudela run from winter into early spring; piquillo peppers are fire-roasted, peeled by hand and served whole or stuffed. Order them individually as a starter, or as menestra, a braise of whatever is in season, which in Navarre is treated as a main course and not a side.

Lamb and cheese

Cordero al chilindrón is the regional lamb braise, cooked down with peppers, tomato, onion and garlic, and it arrives in a casserole meant for two. On the cheeseboard, Idiazabal and Roncal are both raw sheep’s milk cheeses with protected designations, the first often lightly smoked, the second older and drier.

Wine and pacharán

The DO Navarra vineyards start immediately south of the city, historically garnacha country, with tempranillo and French varieties widely planted since the 1990s. House bottles in restaurants sit around €15 to €20 and named producers €25 upwards. Wine lists here also carry plenty from neighbouring La Rioja, which is under an hour and a half away by road. Meals close with pacharán, the local sloe liqueur, served cold and straight.

Nightlife

Pamplona runs two entirely separate night-time systems: San Fermín, and the other 356 days. Both operate on late northern-Spanish hours, with dinner at nine or ten, bars filling around eleven and closing between two and three.

The old town circuit

Calle San Nicolás is the wide one, lined end to end with pintxo bars and older bodegas under the bell tower of its namesake church. It fills from seven in the evening, food slows around eleven and drinking carries on afterwards. Calle Estafeta, the long encierro straight, has the younger and louder end of the market, and Calle Jarauta between them is the local favourite. The three streets are within ninety seconds of each other, so nobody commits to one bar.

Plaza del Castillo

The arcaded square is for sitting rather than dancing. The terraces under the colonnade, Café Iruña among them, take the after-work crowd from seven, and the bandstand in the middle hosts free concerts through the summer. It is the default meeting point before anything else happens.

Ensanche

Down in the grid south of the square the crowd is older, the prices a little higher and the cocktail lists longer. A handful of late bars run past the old town’s closing time. There is a small club scene on the outer avenues, open Thursday to Saturday, mostly Spanish pop and electronic.

San Fermín, 6 to 14 July

A different city. The fiesta opens with the chupinazo rocket fired from the town hall balcony at noon on 6 July and runs continuously for nine days, the encierro at eight each morning from the 7th onward, bullfights in the afternoon, and street bands and concerts through the night. Almost everyone wears the same thing: white shirt, white trousers, red sash and red neckerchief. A procession carries the saint through the old town each morning, and the Pobre de Mí candlelit closing at midnight on the 14th ends it.

The rest of the calendar

San Fermín Txikito on the last weekend of September is the miniature local version, with a rocket, processions and concerts but no bull run. The Privilegio de la Unión on 8 September commemorates the 1423 charter that merged the three feuding burgos into one city; the 602nd anniversary in 2025 brought fairs, concerts and guided tours. San Saturnino’s day on 29 November is the old town’s own patronal night. Note that the last regular buses go around 23:00, so a late night means walking or a taxi.

When to go

Pamplona’s altitude keeps it cooler than the Ebro valley and drier than the Basque coast, with a humid subtropical classification and 720 mm of rain a year spread fairly evenly across the seasons. May, June and September are the best months to be here as a visitor. The first half of July is the best month to be here as a participant, and the worst as anything else.

January and February

The coldest stretch, with average highs of 9.5 °C in January and 11.2 °C in February and overnight lows just above freezing. Snow falls a few times most winters. Hotels are at their cheapest and the pintxo bars are all locals. Carnival, whose date moves with Easter, brings two days of street parades.

March and April

Changeable, with highs climbing from 15 °C in March to 17.2 °C in April and lows still around 4 to 6 °C. Semana Santa is the busiest week of the spring, with processions through the old town. Pilgrim numbers on the Camino rise sharply through this period as the Pyrenean passes clear.

May and June

The best window. Highs of 21.4 °C in May and 25.8 °C in June, long evenings, the citadel park at its best, and no fiesta pricing yet. This is also when the asparagus and menestra season peaks in the restaurants. Camino traffic is heavy but the old town absorbs it easily.

July

July averages a high of 28.5 °C, the warmest month after August. San Fermín occupies the 6th to the 14th and reorganises the entire city: accommodation at several times its normal rate, the old town shut to traffic, the encierro at 08:00 each morning from the 7th, and very little sleep available anywhere near the centre. The second half of the month is quiet, warm and one of the better times for day trips north into the mountains.

August

The hottest month, averaging 29.2 °C by day and 15 °C overnight, with afternoon thunderstorms common. Spanish holiday traffic keeps hotels reasonably full even though the city itself is calm, and village festivals run across Navarre through the month.

September and October

September is the pick of the autumn: highs of 24.8 °C, cooler nights, no crowds and a full events calendar. The Privilegio de la Unión falls on the 8th and San Fermín Txikito on the last weekend. October cools to 19.7 °C and gets wetter, and the theatre and classical seasons start up.

November and December

Highs drop to 13.2 °C in November and 9.9 °C in December, with lows near freezing and short daylight. San Saturnino’s festival on 29 November is the last big night of the year in the old town. A Christmas market runs in Plaza del Castillo through most of December, and the Olentzero, the Basque charcoal-burner who brings the presents, is paraded through the streets on Christmas Eve.

If you are here for	Time it for
The encierro	7 to 14 July, 08:00
The full fiesta	6 to 14 July
San Fermín Txikito	Last weekend of September
Privilegio de la Unión	8 September
The Camino without crowds	March or October
Cheap beds and empty bars	January and February

Getting there

Pamplona has a small airport with a thin route map, a single railway station on the western edge of town, a coach station south of the centre, and motorways in every direction. Most people arriving from outside Spain come in through Madrid or Bilbao rather than flying direct.

By air

Pamplona Airport (PNA) is 6 km from the city and handled 220,423 passengers in 2024. Iberia flies to Madrid, which accounts for more than 170,000 of those passengers, plus a seasonal Ibiza run; Binter Canarias serves Gran Canaria and Tenerife North, and Volotea adds Seville from November 2026. Ground transport is thin: the city bus route to the terminal was withdrawn for lack of passengers, leaving taxis and a bookable shared-taxi service into the centre.

For most international itineraries, Bilbao is the practical entry point, about two and a half hours away by coach, with Madrid the alternative if you would rather connect by train.

By train

The station sits on the western edge of the city, owned by Adif and served by Renfe. Alvia, Intercity and Media Distancia services connect Madrid, Barcelona Sants, Zaragoza-Delicias and Hendaye on the French border. The line has been running since 15 September 1860. A city bus covers the ten minutes between the station and the centre; check timetables and fares at Renfe.

By bus

The coach station is on Calle Yanguas y Miranda, about 800 metres south of Plaza del Castillo, and it is the workhorse of the network. Long-distance operators run to Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza and Logroño; regional services cover San Sebastián, Vitoria-Gasteiz and the Navarrese valleys, including Roncesvalles for the Camino. Coaches from Bilbao airport are the standard way in for anyone flying into the Basque Country.

By car and on foot

The AP-15 runs south to Zaragoza and on towards Madrid, the AP-68 west towards Vitoria, Logroño and Bilbao, the A-15 north-east towards San Sebastián, and the N-135 climbs north through the mountains to Roncesvalles and the French border. Pilgrims on the Camino Francés arrive on that last axis on foot, descending from Roncesvalles through Larrasoaña and entering the walled city through the Portal de Francia. It is typically the third or fourth stage out of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, depending on how you split the walk.

Getting around

The old town and the Ensanche together fit inside a two-kilometre square, and almost every sight is within a twenty-minute walk of Plaza del Castillo. There is no metro and no tram. Buses, feet and a flat-ish centre cover everything.

Buses

The metropolitan network, run by the Mancomunidad de la Comarca de Pamplona and universally called the villavesa, covers the city and the surrounding municipalities. A single ticket paid in cash costs €1.70 from January 2026, or €2 during San Fermín; paying with a transport card brings it down to €0.85 a trip, and to €1.24 on night services and during the fiesta. Transfers between routes are free. Day services finish around 23:00, with limited night routes out to the satellite towns at weekends.

Walking

The cathedral, Plaza del Castillo, the bullring and the citadel are all within fifteen minutes of one another. The wall walk along the northern ramparts and the loop around the citadel and Vuelta del Castillo together make the best circular route in the city, roughly an hour on the flat. The only real gradient is the drop from the old town down to the Arga, and back up again.

Bikes

Pamplona’s public hire scheme is electric-only, with 400 bikes across 42 docking stations. Occasional users pay 4 cents a minute for the first half-hour, 6 cents for the second and 10 cents a minute beyond an hour; subscribers pay 2.5 and 4 cents for those first two half-hours. Registration is through the Ride On app or at rideonpamplona.com, and under-18s need parental consent. The Arga riverside path is the obvious ride.

Taxis and driving

Taxis are metered and easiest to pick up at Plaza del Castillo and the railway station; there is also a bookable shared-taxi service to the airport. Driving inside the centre is a poor idea: the old town is largely pedestrianised behind controlled-access bollards and the Ensanche is metered throughout. Use one of the underground car parks around the centre and leave the car there.

During the fiesta

From 6 to 14 July the old town closes to traffic, central bus routes divert and parking near the centre is not realistic. On encierro mornings the route is sealed from about 07:00 until the run is over and the streets are cleared. If you are driving in, park out by the ring road and take a bus.

Where to stay

There are two hotel markets here. For 356 days a year Pamplona is cheaper than San Sebastián or Bilbao and easy to book a week ahead. For the nine days of San Fermín, rates multiply, minimum stays appear, and the beds have usually gone a year in advance.

Casco Antiguo

Small boutique hotels, converted apartments and family-run pensiones in restored houses around Plaza del Castillo and Calle Mayor. You walk everywhere from here, which is the point, and you also sleep above the bars, which is the cost. Roughly €100 to €180 in high season and €70 to €120 out of it.

Ensanche

The default for most visitors: a run of three and four-star city hotels along and behind Avenida Carlos III, ten minutes from the old town and close to the coach station. More conventional rooms, quieter nights, and roughly €90 to €160 high season, €60 to €110 low.

Cheaper and further out

Neighbourhood hotels and pensiones in Iturrama and the districts south of the citadel run around €60 to €110 and leave you a twenty-minute walk from the centre. Beyond the city boundary, chain hotels in Burlada, Barañáin and the other satellite towns sit near the ring road at €70 to €140, with a bus into town. Both are worth considering for fiesta week if you have left it late.

Apartments and albergues

Short-let flats are widely available in both the old town and the Ensanche, roughly €70 to €140 a night outside fiesta. Check that a listing carries a Navarrese tourist registration number before you pay a deposit. Pilgrims have their own system: the public Albergue de Peregrinos Jesús y María on Calle Compañía is dormitory accommodation for people carrying a credencial who walked the previous stage, with a handful of private albergues alongside it.

Booking for San Fermín

Assume you are booking by the previous November. Expect minimum stays of several nights, deposits taken well in advance, and rates several times the normal level; some apartment owners only let the whole fiesta as a block. If you turn up without a bed, the tourist office on Calle San Saturnino can sometimes point you at a private room, but you will pay for it and you may end up commuting in.

Practical info

Currency, plugs, tipping, tap water and the national emergency number are all covered in the Spain guide. What follows is specific to Pamplona, and most of it revolves around the fiesta.

Tourist office

The municipal office is on the ground floor at Calle San Saturnino 2, on +34 948 420 700, with a WhatsApp line on +34 639 780 937. Hours change three times a year: 1 July to 15 September it opens Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 18:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 14:00; 16 March to 30 June and 16 September to 31 October, Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 14:00 and 15:00 to 18:00, Sunday 10:00 to 14:00; and 1 November to 15 March, Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 14:00 and 15:00 to 17:00, Sunday 10:00 to 14:00. It closes on 25 December, 1 January and 6 January.

Language

Spanish and Basque are both official in Navarre, but Basque is far more widely spoken in the rural north of the region than in Pamplona itself. Official signage is bilingual, so you will see Pamplona/Iruña on the same board. Day-to-day conversation in shops and bars is overwhelmingly in Spanish, and English is workable in tourist-facing businesses in the centre.

If you are here for the fiesta

Book a bed by the previous November. Wear the uniform, white with a red sash and neckerchief, because everybody does and sets are sold cheaply from street stalls in the days before. Be in position early if you want to see the run: the route seals from about 07:00 for an 08:00 start, and if you are not running you watch from a paid balcony, from the bullring stands, or on television in a bar. Anyone thinking of running should read the official rules first: over-18s only, sober, no phones, and always in the same direction as the herd. Check that your travel insurance covers it, because standard policies generally do not.

Safety and everyday practicalities

Pamplona is a low-crime city for most of the year. During San Fermín, pickpocketing rises sharply and the hotspots are predictable: the crowd on the encierro route before the run, the square outside the town hall afterwards, and the packed bar streets of the old town at night. Front pockets and zipped bags only.

Mobile coverage is good across the city and free public wi-fi reaches Plaza del Castillo and the main civic buildings. For toilets, cafés are the standard answer, with free facilities at the tourist office, the bus and train stations and the citadel; the city installs portable units across the old town during fiesta and they fill fast. Note also that several attractions shut for fiesta week, so if you are here on 6 to 14 July for anything other than San Fermín, check opening times before you set out.