Thousands of revellers have packed the streets of Pamplona as the world-famous San Fermín Festival officially got under way, marking the start of nine days of celebrations that culminate in the iconic running of the bulls.
More than 12,000 people gathered in the city's main square on Monday (6 July) for the traditional Chupinazo ceremony, where a rocket fired from the town hall balcony signalled the start of the festival.
Dressed in white with red scarves, crowds sang, danced and sprayed each other with wine and grape juice.
The first running of the bulls will take place on Tuesday morning, with the event held daily until 14 July.
Each day at 8 a.m., six fighting bulls weighing around 600 kilograms race along an 848-metre course through Pamplona's Old Town to the bullring, chased by hundreds of runners.
The event remains one of the festival's biggest attractions but is also its most dangerous. Dozens of participants are injured every year, while 16 people have died during the runs since official records began in 1924.
Many of the same bulls later take part in evening bullfights.
Dating back to the late 16th century, the San Fermín Festival honours Pamplona's patron saint, Saint Fermín, and attracts more than one million visitors from around the world each year.
Beyond the bull runs, the celebrations feature concerts, parades, traditional dances, religious ceremonies and round-the-clock street festivities.
The festival gained worldwide fame through Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, which turns 100 next year and introduced generations of international visitors to Pamplona's annual celebration.
As in previous years, animal rights activists staged demonstrations against the bull runs and bullfights, wearing mock bull horns and covering themselves in red paint to symbolise the animals' deaths.
Despite ongoing criticism from animal welfare groups, the San Fermín Festival remains one of Spain's best-known cultural events and one of Europe's largest annual festivals.
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