Where do the bulls actually run during the Running of the Bulls?
During the Running of the Bulls, or the encierro, six bulls and six steers run a roughly 850-meter course through the streets of Pamplona, Spain. The encierro happens every morning between July 7th - July 14th, every year.
The bulls are released from their corrals on Calle Santo Domingo (where they are brought the night before), and they immediately begin running uphill. Then, they charge across the town square and Calle Mercaderes, around "La Curva" or "Dead Man's Corner," and down Calle Estafeta. At the end of Calle Estafeta, the bulls curve past the Telefónica building, run down the "callejón" corridor, and pass through the "Tunnel of Death," and finally arriving in the Plaza de Toros.
If you're running with the bulls this year, plan to line up in the Plaza Consistorial or Calle Santo Domingo by 7:00am. Around 7:15am, the streets will be officially closed to the public, and a police barricade will form at the beginning of Calle Mercaderes. At this point, no one else will be permitted to run.
From 7:00am until around 7:45am, runners will mingle, warm up, and pray. Then, the police barricade will break, and runners will be permitted to find their chosen place along the route. Some runners will go to a chosen doorway, others will line up underneath the balcony of a loved one, and others will run all the way into the Plaza de Toros before the bulls are even released (these people are sarcastically called "los valientes" or "the brave ones" because they never actually run with the bulls).
The doors of the bull corrals are opened at 8:00am sharp, and a rocket is fired to announce that the bull run has officially begun. Then, usually a few seconds later, a second rocket is fired to signal that all bulls have officially left their corrals and have started charging up Calle Santo Domingo towards the crowd of runners. The bulls will run the entire bull run course in roughly 2 minutes and 30 seconds, before finally arriving in their new corrals in the Plaza de Toros, or the bull ring. A final rocket is sounded to signal that all the bulls are safely in their corrals, and then the streets are reopened to the public to start another day of fiesta!