Hemingway Adventure (1999) (17 page)

In the ring at a local gymnasium.

Hemingway, wounded by a falling skylight, left Paris in 1928 but returned to ‘the city I love best in all the world’ when it was liberated from the Germans in 1944.

Fifty-five years later, I storm up to the Arc de Triomphe in a Second World War American tank.

After being stopped by the gendarmes, unable to start again. Film crew try the impossible, pushstarting a tank.

The calm before the storm. Pause for reflection at the Hotel La Perla, with bulls who’ve already run their course.

Bulls enter the Calle Estafeta, as I watch from the balcony of the room used by Hemingway in the 1920s.

The Pamplona squeeze. Huge, soggy crowd cheers the start of an eight-day party.

A bull gets his man.

In Madrid, football supporters don’t care too much about the Hemingway connection.

Apprentice plays bull as I learn, far too late in life, to wield the muleta and strut like a matador.