[Trip] Spain- The Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas

So we went and visit The Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, which is the famous bullfighting arena in Spain. It is located in Madrid, the closest metro station is Ventas. You look up from the station, you will see the arena. It is a nice arena with a Spanish touch. We were planning to do the tour around the arena, however we noticed that the ticket office was open. So we went and asked whether there is an event on that night, it turned out that there was one, for the trainee. Since we haven’t seen one before, so we decided to give it a go. We got the shaded area seating, which was pretty good as that day was quite hot and sunny. It was a pretty good view of the arena.

We got there about 30 minutes before it starts, so we got the audioguide and listen about the bullfighting event and its history. It was quite useful as we didn’t know how it works and what the sound means. So it starts off with the parade for Matador, if they took off their hats during the parade, it means that they are on debut on this arena. It was quite interesting fact. We got to see 6 Matador going through the bullfight, each took about 30 minutes each. They have 3 stages to go through before killing the bull. 1 stage is when Matador on the horse draws its first blood on the bull. The second stage is when 3 sets of 2 barbed sticks are inset on the bull, so that it weakens the bull even more. The third stage is the final kill which the Matador goes through a number of passes to weaken the bull before killing it with 2 stabs through spinal core for the instant death. Sometimes it takes a while until the bull dies. Once it is dead, it gets dragged out the arena by the mules and the staff cleans up the arena. To some, this is inhumane but to others, they see this as a sport. Whatever it is, to me, it is an experience.