Discussion Main / TorosYFlamenco

Then too, it is also not true that there is only running of the bulls in Pamplona. That one is the most famous, but damn near every city and town that can afford it has their own running of the bulls during their own local festivities.

but there are Ferias de Abril in most Spanish cities now, some of them in the very north like Barcelona

That's because there are a lot of Andalusian immigrants in Catalonia, Madrid and so on. The ferias de abril outside Andalucia are more like Irish-Americans celebrating St Patrick's Day in New York. *The* Feria de Abril is just the one in Seville.

Then too, it is also not true that there is only running of the bulls in Pamplona. That one is the most famous, but damn near every city and town that can afford it has their own running of the bulls during their own local festivities.

The difference is that while every village celebrates their patron saint's day with an encierro of vaquillas (heifers), the encierros in the sanfermines are done with six steers and the six toros de lidia (grown-up bulls of the breed used in bullfights) that will be used in the afternoon's bullfight, who are bigger than the heifers and have great, pointy horns.

Also, usually anything bigger than a small rural town will celebrate the encierro inside its plaza de toros (bullfighting ring), not the city streets. Small villages close up a few streets and the main square and do the encierro there because they usually don't have a permanent bullfighting ring. Pamplona is also an exception in this, too.

The encierro is actually the way that the bulls are transported to the bullring, not the bullfight itself. Pamplona's streets are too narrow to make a cattle truck pass through them hence why it is unique to it.

In general, shows involving bovines outside bullrings (bous a la mar, vaquillas, embolaos, etc, which are not bullfights either) only happen in some certain places and are not as common as one might think at first. Localities too small to have a bullring might have a removable one for local holidays, rather than using the town's square (although this was the norm centuries ago). In any case, the vast majority of bovine shows, bullfights or not, happen around and especially south of Madrid◊.