The bulls get their own back in Pamplona .

Picture: Tourist Department of the Government of Navarra

With little more than a death wish, a spare pair of underwear and veins pumped with alcohol, hundreds of thousands of thrill-seekers descend on Pamplona in northern Spain every July for the Fiesta de San Fermin (Running of the Bulls).

Made famous by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises and more recently by Billy Crystal in City Slickers, adrenalin hits don't come better than running through the streets while being pursued by a herd of angry, stampeding, 500-kilogram bulls.

For those with no desire to be gored or trampled, the spectacle can be safely viewed from overhanging balconies.

Each encierros (bull run) ends with the confused animals being rounded into a ring where a bullfight ensures them a bloody end.

More recently, the festival has been upstaged by the Running of the Nudes, a racy protest procession held a day before San Fermin providing naked proof that Pamplona "doesn't need to torture animals for tourism".