Hemingway's Spain itinerary

Few foreigners have loved Spain as much as Ernest Hemingway. He first came in 1923 as a young journalist and was spellbound: the San Fermín festival in Pamplona, trout fishing in the Pyrenees, the Prado, the bars of Madrid, the wine, the bullfight, to which he devoted an entire book. He returned as a correspondent during the Civil War, on the Republican side, and from that experience came For Whom the Bell Tolls. He came back again in the 1950s, by then a Nobel laureate, to follow the rivalry between two matadors. He set two of his most famous novels in Spain, and many places still remember him with statues, plaques and bars that bear his name.

This eight-day itinerary follows in his footsteps: the Madrid of beer halls and Botín restaurant, the Sierra de Guadarrama of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Pamplona and the Café Iruña, the village of Burguete and the Irati forest, where he went fishing, San Sebastián, where The Sun Also Rises ends, and Ronda, the clifftop town he thought the finest place for a honeymoon.

Hemingway and Spain

Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 near Chicago and first came to Spain in 1923, while living in Paris. In Pamplona he discovered San Fermín, and from that experience came his first great novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926), published in Britain as Fiesta, which made the festival famous around the world. In 1932 he published Death in the Afternoon, a study of bullfighting. During the Civil War, in 1937 and 1938, he was in Madrid as a correspondent and worked on a documentary for the Republic; in 1940 he published For Whom the Bell Tolls, set among the guerrillas of the Sierra de Guadarrama. After the war he stayed away from Spain for many years in opposition to Franco; he returned in 1953 and, for the last time, in 1959. He won the Nobel Prize in 1954 and died in 1961. See our page on the Spanish Civil War.

Day 1: Hemingway's Madrid

Start at the Prado Museum, which Hemingway loved above all others: he spent hours in front of the paintings of Velázquez, Goya and El Greco, and said the museum alone was worth the trip. See the Prado. In the afternoon stroll through the Barrio de las Letras and have a beer at the Cervecería Alemana on Plaza de Santa Ana, one of his favourite bars, with wooden walls and marble tables. See the Barrio de las Letras.

In the evening dine at Botín, on calle de Cuchilleros near the Plaza Mayor, founded in 1725 and considered the oldest restaurant in the world still in business. Hemingway set the last scene of The Sun Also Rises here, with roast suckling pig and Rioja wine. End the night at Museo Chicote, the bar on the Gran Vía where journalists gathered during the war. See eating and drinking in Madrid.

Where to stay: in Madrid, for two nights.

Day 2: the Sierra de Guadarrama

For Whom the Bell Tolls tells of three days in the life of an American volunteer, Robert Jordan, sent to blow up a bridge in the mountains north of Madrid. The novel's landscape is that of the Sierra de Guadarrama, now a national park, with pine forests, granite outcrops and meadows. Drive or take the train up to the Navacerrada pass (about an hour) and walk in the Scots pine woods, perhaps as far as Laguna de Peñalara. During the war the front line ran across these very mountains, and trenches and bunkers remain. In the afternoon go down to Segovia, which Hemingway knew well, to see the aqueduct and the Alcázar, or return to Madrid. See Segovia.

Day 3: Pamplona

The high-speed train takes you from Madrid to Pamplona in about three hours. Head straight for the Café Iruña on Plaza del Castillo, the grand café of 1888 with its mirrors and decorated ceilings, where Hemingway and his characters spent their days. In the corner of the bar, the Rincón de Hemingway, a bronze statue of the writer leaning on the counter awaits visitors. On the same square is the Hotel La Perla, where he stayed, with a room named after him. Then walk the route of the encierro, the bull run, about 850 metres from calle Santo Domingo to the bullring, outside which stands a bust of Hemingway on the Paseo Hemingway. See Pamplona.

Where to stay: in Pamplona, for two nights. For San Fermín you must book months ahead.

Day 4: Pamplona and San Fermín

If you are travelling between 6 and 14 July, the day starts at eight with the encierro: hundreds of runners dressed in white with red neckerchiefs run ahead of the bulls through the streets of the old town. It is dangerous, and you can watch from rented balconies or from the stands along the route. The rest of the day is a party: the procession of San Fermín on 7 July, the giants and cabezudos, the peñas playing in the streets, fireworks at night. Outside the festival Pamplona is a quiet, pleasant city, with its cathedral, walls and citadel, and the pintxo bars of calle Estafeta. Bullfighting remains a hotly debated tradition in Spain, and many visitors prefer to enjoy the festival without attending. See bullfighting in Spain and Navarre.

Day 5: Burguete and the Irati Forest

Drive towards the Pyrenees to Burguete (about three quarters of an hour), a village of white houses with red shutters on the Camino de Santiago. In the novel the characters come here to fish before the festival, and Hemingway himself stayed at the Hotel Burguete, which still has the piano on which he carved his signature. Two kilometres away is Roncesvalles, with its collegiate church and the memory of Roland's battle.

In the afternoon drive into the Irati Forest (about three quarters of an hour), one of the largest beech forests in Europe, where Hemingway fished for trout in the river. There are easy trails along the river and around the Irabia reservoir. In autumn, with the beeches turned red and gold, the scenery is spectacular. See the Camino de Santiago.

Where to stay: in Burguete or a rural house in the valley.

Day 6: San Sebastián

Cross Navarre to San Sebastián (about an hour and three quarters). This is where Jake Barnes, the narrator of The Sun Also Rises, comes to rest after the festival and swim in the bay of La Concha. The city is one of the most elegant in Spain, with its shell-shaped beach, its promenade with the white railing, the old town and its pintxo bars, among the best in the world. Take the funicular up Monte Igueldo for the view over the bay. See San Sebastián and eating in San Sebastián.

Where to stay: in San Sebastián.

Day 7: to Ronda

Drive to Bilbao airport (about an hour and a quarter), fly to Málaga and drive to Ronda (about an hour and a half), the white town split in two by a gorge more than a hundred metres deep, spanned by the 18th-century Puente Nuevo. Hemingway came here with his friend the matador Antonio Ordóñez, from a celebrated Ronda bullfighting family; behind the bullring the Paseo de Hemingway offers a dizzying view over the valley. The scene in For Whom the Bell Tolls in which fascists are thrown from a cliff is said to have been inspired by violence in Ronda at the start of the war. See Ronda and Bilbao Airport.

Where to stay: in Ronda.

Day 8: Ronda and home

In the morning visit the bullring of 1785, one of the oldest in Spain, with its museum, and walk down the path below the Puente Nuevo to see it from below. In September the town holds the Corrida Goyesca, with costumes from Goya's time. Then return to Málaga and fly home from Málaga Airport.

How much it costs

To save money: avoid San Fermín, when a room in Pamplona can cost three or four times as much; the Prado is free for the last two hours before closing. In San Sebastián a dinner of pintxos costs less than a restaurant.

Practical information

• San Fermín: if you want to run the encierro, learn the rules first; running drunk or with backpacks or cameras is forbidden, and accidents are common.
• Botín: book dinner a few days ahead, especially at weekends.
• Trains: there are several trains a day between Madrid and Pamplona; book with Renfe. See getting around Spain.
• Pyrenees: the road to the Irati is narrow; it can snow in winter, and there is a charge for the forest car park.
• Documents: EU citizens only need a valid identity card.

Variations

• Valencia and the July Feria: Hemingway describes it in The Dangerous Summer; see Valencia.
• Aranjuez: the town of the royal gardens, where Hemingway watched some of his bullfights; see Aranjuez.
• La Rioja: the wine the characters of The Sun Also Rises drink on every page; see the Rioja itinerary.

What to read before you go

The Pamplona novel, The Sun Also Rises, and the Civil War novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls; for Hemingway's last Spain, The Dangerous Summer. For context, a good history of the Spanish Civil War. See also Spanish festivals.

Final tips

• Pace: in Pamplona, outside San Fermín, one night is enough; you can add one in San Sebastián.
• Combinations: from Ronda you can link up with the white villages itinerary.
• A tip: at the Café Iruña order a coffee at the counter beside Hemingway's statue at eight in the morning, when the café is still empty: the hour when the writer used to work.

See also our other itineraries in Spain.

Pamplona on the map

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