How can I make it to the Running of the Bulls 2014 from Paris?
 

Hi everyone,

I have booked flights arriving to Paris on the 8th and returning from Portugal on the 25th. My plan was to start in Paris and make my way down to Barcelona, Madrid, and then Lisbon. Well I learned that the Running of the Bulls will be going on during this time. I would like to get to Pamplona the 13th so we could do the last running of the bulls on the 14th. However I am finding it almost impossible and/or extremely EXPENSIVE to get there. I need help! Thank you!

You can take the train from Barcelona, Madrid or Paris. Accommodations should be fairly reasonable on the 13th, but you need to book as early as possible since Bastille Day is the 14th and Pamplona will be filled with French Basque there to celebrate. You'll also need a balcony reservation if you want to see the run, the final encierro of the festival.

If you mean Pamplona is expensive then - yes, it is - very.

No way to be there and not pay for it (the police will frown on it if you try to sleep in a park.

Do you actually want to run (I hope you insurance is really good, people are severely injured or killed on a fairly frequent basis)?

Eh, okay. I don't know how to delete this thread or I would. Seems like too much of a hassle anyway.

There have been more people killed and injured in one ski season then during the entire history of the encierro, it's just that it's a bit more dramatic.

Yes, you can sleep in the park, with a few thousand others as there are less than 3000 hotel rooms available at any one time. The 13th of July is a Sunday, so the population of the city will double.

Well...I would not sleep in the park anyway... I wasn't looking for advice on where to sleep but on how to get there.. haha. Thank you for the advice though! We will probably not end up going now anyway, too much of a hassle unless miraculously someone has an easy solution to getting there easily at a decent price. Thank you though!

Quote Robert: <i>There have been more people killed and injured in one ski season then during the entire history of the encierro, it's just that it's a bit more dramatic.</i>
However the ski season (what ever that may mean) is world wide and all year This event is only in one small town in Spain and held over just a few days. So the statistics quoted here are a little weighted and do not prove the fact it is not dangerous to run with the bulls.

That is one of the silliest "statistics" I have ever seen.

How many people ski all over the world in one year? What percentage of them is severely injured/killed (we're not talking about a sprained or broken ankle).

Versus a few thousand (at most) people being chased by very large angry animals. And what percentage are killed or maimed?

How about more people are killed by being horny, than from the horns of the bull at San Fermin? (Talk about worldwide with a long season)

Yes, it's dangerous, but mostly because of the crowd (since the mid-90s), not the bulls, There have only been 16 deaths since 1922. We loose more than that skiing in the Pacific northwest in one season, forget the worldwide numbers.

Should be very drunk, stupid, unlucky or all to get seriously injured during the encierro in Pamplona. I almost managed it...