Stories from Spain: Bullfighting and Madrid

The Royal Palace

Spain is an old country. Everywhere one looks history stares back at you. Its buildings are ornate and old—and always beautiful.  Just in Madrid one can visit the Royal Palace built after a fire for the second time in the 1700s, or even an Egyptian temple dating from 200 A.D. Businesses still close every day for Siesta and the Spanish tradition of the bull fight is still performed nightly—in most places that haven’t turned their bull arenas into shopping malls.




In Madrid, we stayed at Hotel Opera which was across the street from the Opera house. When asking for directions to the hotel, we learned quickly that it is pronounced like Oprah, and not the way we normally pronounce it in America. We were able to walk everywhere. The palace was only a block away as well as all the sights we journeyed to during our four days there.




The Bull areana

And there were many sights. From parks to shops to museums, we attempted to take it all in. Of course, bullfighting is one of the main attractions in Madrid, as well as other places in Spain.
I will confess to having read nothing on an actual bullfight before I attended a fight at The Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas. I figured I’d learn everything I needed to know during the actual fight. In fact, I believed I was attending one bullfight until I was informed differently right before the fight began.

The matadors sent in early in the fight had pink/yellow capes.

The opening ceremony is a majestic and formal beginning to the elaborate farce – show-- that follows. I found the whole fight to be completely unfair, and I felt sorry for the bull the entire time. I never considered myself to be an animal rights activist, but during the show I could see why there had been a few protestors outside protesting the show, as well as why Barcelona had did away with their arena and turned it into a shopping mall.


The main Matador held the red cape.

I’d always assumed that a bullfight was one man against a bull. It turns out that many matadors exhaust and injure the bull before the main matador faces the bull. And then I had to watch this multiple times. We managed to last through four of them before we had to excuse ourselves from the remaining two. We did watch one matador get injured though and carried out of the arena by the others. Until this, I was cheering for the bulls, but after this, I was conflicted. I don’t like seeing people or animals injured. So I consider this an experience that I don’t need to repeat.


How every bull fight ends-- the bull is dragged out of the areana

While in Madrid, we also went to the bull bar. This bar has its walls covered in bullfight pictures as well as the heads of bulls. It was a wonderful place to take in the history of bullfighting with very nice bartenders as well. This experience, though some of the pictures were distressing to look at, was not a terrible experience and one I’d recommend checking out. In particular there is one gruesome picture involving a horn going straight through the jaw of a matador. It’s one of those things that you don’t want to look at, but you can’t seem to look away.

We also visited the oldest restaurant in the world in Madrid—Botin. This restaurant is known for its roast suckling pig which comes to you with its little face still attached. I refused to look at this while we ate so no one ordered it, but the food was great nonetheless.

I don’t know if it’s because it is the first place we arrived or it is the coziness of the city, but I have a particular fondness for Madrid. Beyond the bullfighting, it was a beautiful experience.



The Bull Bar