I've been to Spain four times now, I think. I've never been to a bullfight. I admit to being fascinated by the subject. I've read a lot about it. I've watched it in a limited fashion on TV. I've visited the bullfighting museum at the bullring in Madrid, and I've walked on the sand of the bullring in Ronda. I'm currently reading "Sangre y Arena" ("Blood and Sand"), a classic of Spanish literature in which the tragic protagonist is a proud, arrogant bullfighter. He strays from his wife for a beautiful society woman. When he gets dumped, he loses his mojo. Predictably, this leads to his death in the bullring. Despite all this, I've never been to a fight. I've never felt that I could enjoy the spectacle in which the horses and the bulls are treated in this way for entertainment. It appears that this sentiment is finally starting to shift in Spain as well now two parts of the country have voted to ban bullfights (NY Times article here). Still, the mythology of the whole enterprise is intriguing. I don't expect that we'll see a bullfight on our next trip, but here are some pix of our visit to the Plaza de Toros in Madrid a year ago. As a special bonus, I include a couple pix from my visit to the Ronda bullring in 2006 with Brad and Mom.
Here we are posing beneath an interesting bull-themed sculpture outside of the Madrid bullring:
Another interesting sculpture at the Madrid bullring:
Picasso did a famous series of bullfighting aquatints. This one was reproduced on a poster outside the Madrid bullring. I think it's really cool.
As promised, here I am with Mom and Brad hiding from the fierce toros at the Ronda bullring in September 2006:
Another shot of the Ronda bullring. In any bullring, the expensive seats are in the shady side of the ring ("sombra), while the cheap seats on on the hot, sunny side ("sol"):
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