Pamplona - Café Iruña

In 74 BC, the Roman city was founded by Pompejus on the site of a local settlement. The city served to secure the Pyrenees crossing from Roncesvalles.

Pamplona was destroyed several times in the course of its history:

466 by the Visigoths, 542 by the Franks, 778 by Charlemagne, 924 by Abd ar-Rahman III and in 1521 during the Franco-Spanish War by troops of Francis I.

Its location on the Way of St. James from France gave the capital of the Kingdom of Navarre a boom in the 11th century. With the division of Navarre, the city ultimately came to Spain.

After the conquest of the country and its incorporation into Castile in 1512-1515, Pamplona became one of the outposts of the Spanish crown on the French border. Its mission for 300 years was to secure the border against a possible invasion from France. Fortifications and walls were a vital system of defense, but at the same time prevented the city from expanding.

Café Iruña was the first place in the city to have electric light and has been the meeting place in the center of Pamplona since it opened in 1888.

The café was one of Ernest Hemingway's favorite places. In the 1920s it served as a base from which visitors from overseas would set out. And so this café plays a secret role in Hemingway's first novel "The Sun Also Rises".

Maybe Hemingwqay had similar pinchos here.


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