Hemingway and the fried egg

Whatever you think of his writing and his view of masculinity, there’s no getting past Hemingway in tourist Pamplona. For the locals, it is not his ideas that make him a controversial figure.

For someone who features in the tourist shops and in the Pamplona mythology there’s actually surprisingly little of his reality here. There’s a bust outside the bullring which recognises that it was his writing that elevated the encierro, the running of the bulls, in Pamplona above the same activity in many other Spanish towns. And that really put Pamplona on the tourist map.

Then there is the bar under the portico on the plaza, Iruna, where he spent a lot of time drinking. It’s actually a pretty nice spot, and I had a coffee there. I am sure Hemingway and I were conceptually scoffing at each other across the decades as we raised very different drinks in the bar.

There is the Perla hotel on one corner of the plaza and, as an aside, directly behind my apartment. Jennifer and I stayed there a couple of years ago – although not in Hemingway’s favourite room which you can apparently book.

There’s another bar across the plaza where he drank a lot – there’s a theme here. But I had other eating and drinking plans so skipped that one.

Then there is the Plaza de Armas itself which gets a Guernsey because, first, attentive readers will have noticed the other three spots are on the Plaza and, second, it gets mentioned a lot in his book.

And there you have it, that was the Hemingway experience in all its glory. The reason he’s controversial locally is because, thanks to him, so many foreigners now come to run the bulls. Many locals feel this takes away from their ancient tradition because the foreigners are doing it for all the wrong reasons. But, like many other similar situations, that’s balanced by many other locals who appreciate the tourists’ money.

My other main game for the afternoon was a visit to Vermenturia Rio for the famous huevo frito. The literal translation is fried egg and if you see it on a breakfast menu that’s exactly what you’ll get. In Bar Rio since the 1960s it is a boiled egg deep fried surrounded by béchamel sauce and batter; like an egg croquette.

It wasn’t bad. But you can easily see why it has failed to take the world by storm.