It's ten o'clock in the morning on the sixth of July and from all parts of Pamplona and the surrounding villages the young and not so young -all dressed in dazzling white- are leaving their homes all heading in the same direction. For them, the square in front of the City Hall is the centre of the world where the fiesta explodes into life as the first rocket breaks the silence of the heavens.

Neck-scarves in their hands being waved in the wind, the square and the adjacent streets turn into a sea of red triangles and only become calm when the hands of the clock join together at midday. 

At twelve o'clock a member of the City council lights the touch paper of the rocket which then explodes above thousands of heads whose voices echo in chorus the cry of the councillor who opens the festival: "People of Pamplona! Long live San Fermín!" in Spanish and Basque. Then a roaring crescendo seizes the scene of the festival, a roar that stems from the City Hall square but extends the roughout the old town mixed with the music of street bands where there is more noise than harmony and the rhythm accelerates along with the beating hearts because finally los Sanfermines have started.