At midday on July 6, a rocket will be fired from the balcony of Pamplona’s town hall in north-eastern Spain and the fiesta of San Fermín will be underway for another year. But what do you know about this famous and enduring event other than the fact that people run with the bulls in the morning and watch them die in the bullring each night? It’s a much bigger and all-encompassing party that you might think.

Let’s get the big one out of the way first. If you’re squeamish about the treatment of the bulls in the streets or in the ring, you might be surprised to learn that there’s a lot more to fiesta than the bulls. Indeed, there’s so much else going on in Pamplona at any given time during fiesta, you can schedule your time to avoid them altogether. Revelers hold up red scarves during the Chupinazo, the official opening of the fiesta of San Fermín.

Saint Fermín of Amiens is is the co-patron of Navarre, the region of Spain in which Pamplona is located, and the fiesta takes place in his honour. At 10am on July 7, a statue of the saint is carried through Pamplona’s streets for people to venerate and photograph. Each morning before the bull run (or encierro), runners sing to a smaller statue (pictured), which resides in an alcove in a wall above Santo Domingo, the first section of the run. “San Fermín, we ask you to be our patron, to guide us in the encierro, to give us your blessing!” The red scarf (or pañuelo) that is an instantly recognisable aspect of fiesta also has religious origins. According to the parish priest of Pamplona’s San Lorenzo Church, Jesús Labari: “For religious ceremonies in honour of a saint, if the saint is a martyr and died for his beliefs, the priests dress in red. In the case of the festival in honour of San Fermín, we do this because he was martyred and the thing about the red scarf is a performance by the people of this religious custom.”

Some people are often surprised to learn that the bull run happens more than once, every morning from July 7 to 14. What we know as the bull run is known in Spanish as the encierro, which literally translates as “enclosure,” as in “the bulls are being enclosed at the bullring”. A better word might perhaps be “corralling”: the idea is to lead the bulls from their pens on the edge of the old city to their corrals at the bullring. (Interestingly, or perhaps confusingly, the Spanish word for bullfight is corrida, which means “running”. This is because the idea of the bullfight is to induce the bull to run past you over and over again.) While the route of the encierro doesn’t change – from the edge of town to the bullring, most famously up Estafeta Street (pictured), where people throng the balconies – the bulls do each day, representing a different breeder’s stock. Accompanied by six oxen, which know the route, the fighting bulls will take place in the evening’s bullfight.

Many people suppose that Pamplona’s fiesta is a party for young people. While there are certainly a lot of young people around, drenching themselves in sangria at the Chupinazo or making out in the parks, the most striking thing about fiesta is how many age brackets are represented. Newborn babies get carried around by their 99-year-old great-grandmothers, everyone resplendent in their whites and pañuelos. There are plenty of family-friendly events as well. Every day, an entourage of giants and bigheads – people in large costumes representing royalty from around the world – parade the streets. There is a fun fair just outside the old city and “children’s bull run,” which involves kids being chased around in the streets by people dressed up as blue cartoon bulls. And every night there is the toro de fuego (or “fire bull), a bull statue letting off fireworks and firecrackers, which chases the children who are still awake after a long day.

This one’s a little bit complicated, but it’s definitely worth knowing – it will explain the protest graffiti you see all over the city, the bilingual street signs, and all the Basque flags. While Pamplona is considered a part of the Basque Country, it is in the Spanish province of Navarre, not the Basque Autonomous Region like nearby San Sebastián and Bilbao. Some of the fiesta’s greatest traditions are Basque in origin. While not all Basques want to separate their country from Spain, there are some who do. The 1978 fiesta was cancelled after riots broke out between Basque separatists and police at the bullring. (Old-timers who were stranded in their hotel rooms for days talk about it like retired war correspondents.) While there has been little to no violence at fiesta in recent years, it always pays to keep the separatist ambitions of some in mind.

While the fountain jumpers get their fair share of photographs taken of them, it’s worth pointing out that it’s not a Spanish (or Basque) tradition. It’s something foreigners – including Australians – introduced to the proceedings and is frowned upon by the Pamplona city council.

From the moment fiesta begins, to the moment it ends more than a week later, you’ll never be without music. In addition to all the official live music – the morning parade of the “Dianas” through the streets, the madness of the peñas (or workers’ clubs, which have their own bands) on their march to the bullring each afternoon – there’s also the random brass band pop-ups on Estafeta, the army of buskers that descends upon the old city, and so much more. There are also concerts every night.

Whether snacking on a cheap jamon bocadillo and drinking sangria out of a wineskin or washing down a three-course meal of steak and milk lamb with an expensive bottle of Rioja, Pamplona is the place to eat and drink. Have breakfast at one of the long share tables that litter the city or a full champagne affair at the fabled Hotel La Perla; a lunch of pintxos – the Basque tapas – at any of the countless cervecerias on Estafeta or San Nicolas Streets; a bocadillo and a bottle of something red at the bullfight; and then dinner at one of the starched-tablecloth places that are almost always booked solid throughout fiesta. Just remember that there are countless parties you’ll have to eat and drink at as well!

Ernest Hemingway first visited Pamplona’s fiesta in 1923. He returned in 1924 and 1925, the latter trip inspiring him to sit down and smash out The Sun Also Rises, the novel that made his name, put Pamplona on the map (though it would be a long time before the number of foreigners in attendance really exploded), and changed American literature forever. of The book was published in October 1926, meaning this year marks its 90th anniversary. There are countless tributes to Hemingway in Pamplona, from the statue of the author outside the bullring (in which he is depicted as a bearded old man, which seems odds given that he was a young, handsome young thing when he first visited) to the bar named for him at the Café Iruña, where a bronze statue of him leans forever against the bar. His grandson, John Hemingway, and great-grandson, Michael, are regulars at fiesta today.

On October 2011, Juan José Padilla was gored by a bull in Zaragoza, suffering multiple fractures to both his jaw and skull, facial paralysis, loss of hearing in his right ear, and of sight in his left eye. Five months later, he returned to the bullring with an eyepatch in Olivenza, gaining the nickname “The Pirate”. When he returned to Pamplona that July – a city that had always loved him for the way he fought the biggest bulls on offer – the people went mad for him. When he fought, you could have heard a pin drop. When he succeeded so spectacularly, pirate flags were thrown into the ring and lots of tears were being shed. His stature in Pamplona has only grown and tickets for his fights are always hard to get. He could run for mayor and win if he wanted to.

Hemingway put it best: “The fiesta was really started. It kept up day and night for seven days. The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta. All during the fiesta you had the feeling, even when it was quiet, that you had to shout any remark to make it heard. It was the same feeling about any action. It was a fiesta that went on for seven days.”

At midnight on the evening of July 14, people will return to the square in front of the town hall, remove their pañuelos for the last time, and sing the song of “Pobre de mí”: “Poor me, poor me, for the fiesta of San Fermín has come to a close.” Fireworks will be let off and lots of tears will be shed. But the song is not all doom and gloom: once you’ve been to one fiesta, you’ll be ready and raring to go for the next and the song even includes the line “There is not long to go!” Indeed, there isn’t. ¡Ya falta menos!