photograph courtesy of minicloud

When it’s gross and rainy we dream of the sun. More precisely, we dream of stifling, heat-heavy days in Pamplona during the fiesta of San Fermin. Yes, that’s right. On cold, rainy days we fantasize about long lazy summer afternoons spent camped at a café sipping coffee or cognac, awaiting the wild magic of the nights to come.

We’re determined to have our fantasy, too. We’re going to Spain, and we’re taking our boy Ernest with us. Or, rather, he’s taking us. If snow or rain is keeping you indoors too—for that matter, even if it isn’t—grab a copy of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway and join us in another time and place.

We love this book for its vivid portrait of Pamplona and its famous festival, but more so for its carousing, its culture, and, of course, its good old-fashioned bar fights. While not the most lighthearted book you’ll ever read, it has a little something for everyone: romance, history, parties. It’s all there, and it’s set in the summer. In Spain. What more could you ask, really?

So on dreary late winter days, grab your coffee—or cognac, we won’t judge—and your book, and migrate to a café in sunny Spain for a fiesta.

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