Pamplona

The 08:00 coach from Heathrow drops you at 21:30 on Calle Tudela, and the first thing you notice is the hush. No brass bands, no sweat-soaked runners, just the click of pilgrims' sticks on flagstone as they follow yellow arrows toward the cathedral. July's red-scarf mayhem feels like a rumour; outside fiesta week Pamplona is a provincial capital the size of Reading that happens to be wrapped in sixteenth-century stone.

A city you can circle in an hour

Start at the star-point of the Ciudadela, the pentagon fortress turned public park. Locals jog its grass ditches before work, dogs chase sticks where muskets once stood, and students sprawl on the bastions with cans bought from the kiosk that opens at noon. From here the walls run almost unbroken for five kilometres; you can walk the lot in fifty minutes if you keep moving, longer if you stop to read the panels that explain why the French never cracked this place. Gates still close at dusk—huge oak doors with iron bosses—yet inside it's all bike lanes and pram-friendly ramps. Wheelchair users reach the cathedral cloister by lift, a rarity in Spanish Gothic.

Drop down into the Casco Antiguo through the Portal de Zumalacárregui. The streets are short but steep; cobbles are smooth and slippery when wet, so decent soles beat fashion. Within ten minutes you're in Plaza del Castillo, the social engine room. Hemingway called it "one of the finest squares in Spain" and the café where he breakfasted, Café Iruña, still serves churros at 07:30 for pilgrims who've walked since Zaragoza. A coffee-and-pastry sets you back €3.20, half the price of Madrid's central cafés, and the 1903 interior—mirrors, brass, dusty ceiling fans—hasn't been tarted up for Instagram.

Lunch is later, larger and cheaper than you'd guess

Navarrans will tell you, politely but firmly, that pintxos are not tapas. Expect a slice of baguette topped with anything from crab to confit duck, held together with a cocktail stick. Two make a light lunch, three a feast. Locals eat at 14:00; arrive at 13:00 and you'll get the bar to yourself and the warmest tortilla. Calle San Nicolás runs perpendicular to Estafeta and has the highest hit-rate: try txistorra (thin, paprika-spiked sausage) or Idiazabal cheese with a dab of quince. House wine comes in small glasses called cazos, €1.40 each, and is usually Navarra rosado—dry, strawberry-scented, better than the pink stuff back home.

If you want a table, reserve. Weekends fill up with families celebrating first communions; conversation levels rise steadily until the bread baskets fly past your ears. Set menus (menú del día) hover round €14 for three courses, wine and dessert. Expect pochas—white haricot beans cooked with clams and morcilla—followed by cordero al chilindrón, lamb stewed with peppers and tomatoes until the meat slips from the bone. Vegetarians survive on grilled piquillo peppers and enormous salads; vegans should ask for alcachofas a la plancha (grilled artichokes) and skip the alioli.

Green lungs above the roar

Pamplona sits 449 m above sea level, high enough for crisp dawns even in August. The Arga river loops round the north and east like a moat; poplar paths shade cyclists and the municipal rowing club. Join them for a five-kilometre circuit starting at the Magdalena bridge—flat, paved, ideal leg-stretch after the coach ride. For something steeper take Bus 9 to the Taconera gate at 08:00 and climb through the park's ilex hedges to the balustrade that overlooks the wheat-brown plains of La Ribera. Jays flash sapphire among the chestnuts; elderly men in flat caps feed the semi-tame squirrels that have been accepting nuts since Franco's day.

Rain arrives without ceremony in April and October; the Navarran word is sirimiri, a fine drizzle that soaks rather than falls. A lightweight jacket lives in every rucksack. When the clouds lift you see the Pyrenees snow-capped on the northern horizon, only 90 minutes away by car.

Hemingway's ghost and other stories

The writer shipped in during the 1920s to watch men run in front of bulls and left with material for three books. His trail is short and walkable: breakfast at Café Iruña, mid-morning vermouth at Bar Txoko, then La Perla spa on the main square for the massage he claimed "knocked the kinks out of a hard night". The spa still operates—€28 buys an hour in the thermal pool under vaulted brick. English-speaking staff will point out the changing cabin used by the author; it's number 12, now labelled with a discreet brass plaque.

Beyond the literary beat, the Museo de Navarra occupies a former hospital on Calle Cuesta Santo Domingo. Entry is €5, free first and third Monday each month, and the collection moves quickly from Roman mosaics to haunting fifteenth-century frescoes rescued from rural chapels. Allow an hour; the top floor's Goya portrait of the Duke of Osuna is worth the stairs.

When to come (and when to stay away)

April-June and September-October give long daylight, café terraces and hotel doubles from €65 inside the walls. Spring brings wild irises along the ramparts; autumn smells of roasted piquillo peppers in doorways. Winter is sharp—frost on the cathedral roof at dawn—but skies stay clear and Christmas markets sell walnut-studded turrón without the tourist mark-up of Madrid.

July is another country. From the 6th to the 14th San Fermín triples prices, imposes two-night minimum stays and fills the old town with an estimated one million visitors. The encierro starts at 08:00 sharp; if you want a balcony, book nine months ahead and expect to pay €150 for a three-minute view. The atmosphere is less drunken lads' tour than it was—police hand out €600 fines for street drinking—but the crush is real and the noise relentless. Fascinating, yes, but not the moment to judge the city's everyday pulse.

Getting there and away

No-frills flights serve Bilbao (1 h 45 min by coach, €14) and Biarritz (1 h 30 min, €10 on BlaBlaBus). Trains leave Madrid at 07:35 and arrive 10:30; the advance fare is €28 in Turista. Drivers should aim for the underground car park beneath Plaza del Castillo—€18 for 24 hours, exits straight onto the ring road south. Once inside the walls you won't need wheels; the centre is barely a kilometre across.

Leave room in the suitcase. Navarra's wine regulations are stricter than Rioja's and the result is under-priced: a bottle of peppery garnacha from Bodegas Nekeas costs €6 in city off-licences. Add a jar of piquillo peppers and a lump of Idiazabal and you can reconstruct lunch back home—minus the cobbles, but with the memory of a city that keeps its fiestas fierce and its daily life quietly human.