Pamplona bull-run festival kicks off with wine-soaked party
A sea of revellers decked in red and white sprayed wine on each other in a packed Pamplona square on Monday to kick off Spain's famed San Fermin running of the bulls festival.
The nine-day street party got underway at midday with the cry "Viva San Fermin!" followed seconds later by the firing of a firecracker known locally as the "chupinazo".
Crowds wearing traditional white outfits trimmed with red neckerchiefs and cummerbunds drank from traditional leather wine pouches and sprayed red wine on others.
Five giant outdoors television screens were set up at other points in the city centre and aired the event live.
Pamplona is located just south of the Rioja vineyard region and wine has for centuries played an important role in the celebrations, which commemorate San Fermin, the city's first bishop and patron saint.
The festival, immortalized in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises", dates back to medieval times and features religious processions, folk dancing, concerts and round-the-clock drinking.
Just over six tonnes of fireworks will be set off during a nightly sound and light show during the festival which wraps up on July 14.
But the highlight is a daily race of courage pitting hundreds of people against a pack of six half-tonne fighting bulls who charge through through the city's cobbled streets in an event aired live across the country by public broadcaster TVE.
After the bulls finish the winding, 846.6-metre (more than half a mile) course through narrow streets to Pamplona's bull ring, one of the world's largest, they are killed in a bullfight.
The first bull run will take place on Tuesday.
Fifteen people have been killed in the bull runs since modern day records started in 1911, the latest in 2009.
Pamplona city officials refused to provide an estimate for the number of visitors expected in the city of 300,000 residents for this year's festival.
But they said just under 1.3 million people took part last year in the over 400 events linked to the run.
About 100 semi-naked animal rights activists daubed themselves with fake blood and stood outside of Pamplona's bullring on Saturday holding signs that read: Pamplona's streets are stained will bull's blood" in several languages.
