Pamplona in July

[Covey]

Anyone walking in to Pamplona in the first three weeks of July has a problem!

Because of the San Fermin Festival, for the last three years the authorities have closed the main "Jesus & Mary" Albergue near the main square in Pamplona for the first three weeks of July. The 114 beds which normally house Pilgrims are given over to tourists who last year were paying €25 per night rather than the €5 the Pilgrims normally pay. Last year the other city center Albergue was closed for renovation in July which meant that there were no Albergue beds in Pamplona itself.

The Albergues at Cizur Menor were open to Pilgrims, but the removal of 140 beds in central Pamplona was causing mild panic amongst pilgrims who were trying to plan their walk between Zubiri and Puenta La Reina!!

The "Official" Albergues are usually owned by State of Local Government and are open to Pilgrims all year and I have never come across one that has been closed other than for fumigation when it was scheduled to be open.

The Catholic Church however has a habit of closing its Albergues without warning if they want the accommodation for someone else other than Pilgrims and I have often arrived in a town to find that the Church Albergue is closed for a few days or a week because the Church is using it for other things.

[geraldkelly]

Hi Covey

I was just wondering about Pamplona in July. I'm due to go through there around the 11th or12th of July, do you this the hostel will be open then? We already postponed by a week to avoid the San Fermin.

Ger

[Covey]

As I said above, there were NO albergue beds in early July 2010 in central Pamplona, although I presume the renovation of the Paderborn will now be complete.

The easiest plan is to stop at Larrasona on Day 2 and then head around to Cizur Menor for Day 3. There is a frequent bus service back in to central Pamplona from Cizur for those who want a taste of the festivities.

If one wants to be really smart, there is a local bus from outside the Larrasona Albergue to the centre of Pamplona which takes about 40 minutes. That gives you an extra couple of hours to soak up the atmosphere in the main square and have a coffee and then walk out to Cizur which takes an hour. As one catches the bus one can observe the huge cement works we have to walk around between Larrasona and Pamplona!!

Last year I met a girl who had been eaten alive by bed bugs in the official albergue in Zubiri and was sitting outside the Larrasona albergue in floods of tears with the big bed bug welts all over her shoulders and the side of her face. I took her on the bus in to Pamplona to the Pilgrim Clinic they have there to get treated and then took her out to Cizur.

I am off to Lisbon on 1st Aug to see if the Portuguese bed bugs are any friendlier than their Spanish cousins!!

[geraldkelly]

Hi Covey, thanks for your reply. I'm not sure what we'll do. Maybe we'll sleep in Trinidad de Arre and walk straight through Pamplona. Anyway, I'm sure it'll be fine. We can always take a bus and skip Pamplona. It's a nice city but I'm not a bit keen on San Fermin.

[Covey]

The trouble is that the message about the Pamplona albergues being shut for the three weeks in July only seemed to become known to most pilgrims when they reached Zubiri and saw the notice on the board. There followed a bit of a scramble to work out the best way to get past Pamplona.

Do you aim for Trinidad so you are positioned to jump around Pamplona to Cizur, but what if you get to Trinidad and it is full? It is then a long haul past there to Cizur. If you aim for Larrasona, then it is a long haul around Pamplona to Cizur and no time to wander around Pamplona.

Or do you catch the bus from Larrasona, have 2 hours in central Pamplona and then out to Cizur before the rest arrive and grab all the beds?

Last year the albergues in Cizur were full pretty early in the afternoon (so many at Larrasona listened to Coveys advice about the "Pamplona Problem" that I very nearly did not make it on to the bus because they will not fill all the seats at Larrasona so there are still seats available further on for locals to have!!)

I know that most Pilgrims will view taking the bus so early in the Camino as "inappropriate", but if Cizur is full then you face a 6km haul to the next potential overnight stop at Zariquiegui which has only 16 beds!!

Given that in July there are about 200 pilgrims per day setting out from Roncesvalles, that means the 200 will arrive in Zubiri/Larrasona and the 200 would normally move on and stay in Pamplona/Cizur. The albergues in Cizur only have 77 beds and 200 into 77 don't work very well, so you want to be ahead of the pack, and that means the bus!!!!

At this point pilgrims find out the advantages of having Camino Grandfathers around!

[geraldkelly]

I just got confirmation via @caminoasantiago Twitter feed that the municipal hostel in Pamplona is closed until 15 July:

https://twitter.com/#!/caminoasantia...07488188555265

[Covey]

Nice to know that Pilgrims come lower down the list than visitors to the bull running!!

[Pavona]

I found this on gospain.about.com:
"Ezcaba is by far the closes campsite to Pamplona. The rest are at least 25km out of the center. Always check if the campsite provides transport to the festival and find out how much a taxi will cost. If you are really concerned about transport, consider taking a Pamplona Guided Tour. Note that most of these involve spending time with drunken youths from the US, the UK and Australia, but you can always use the services they provide and then do your own thing when you're actually at the festival."

I plan to do this since I won't be a pilgrim yet when I get to Pamplona (I'm gonna see Running of the Bulls pre-Way instead of worrying about going through during the Festival).
Any thoughts on camping?