I've seen lots of information on getting bullfight tickets in Madrid at Las Ventas and others ... Does anyone know how I can find out about Bullfights in Barcelona and surrounding towns? I'm interested in tickets for these last two weeks in June.

Thanks, Tonia

Tonia:

FWIW, I'm preparing for a trip to Barcelona and everything I've read says Catalans aren't interested in bullfights. There is a ring in Barcelona which hosts corridas on Sundays, but you're not likely to see many locals there.

It doesn't seem these are "official" websites, but they'll help:

http://www.torosbarcelona.com/
http://www.mundotoro.com/mundotoro/contr...mp;OpenWindow=S

Even if you don't see a corrida, the Plaza Monumental (metro: monumental) is an interesting art nouveau/arabesque building and is worth a look. Here is a page with some fotos:

http://www.archimagen.com/temas/temas_x/esp/barcelona/a0111tor.htm

Thanks for everyone's help. We might go on June 23, but we will certainly check out Plaza Monumental if plans for a Sunday corrida don't work out.

Asterault and others, bullfights aren't that popular in Catalunya/Barcelona? Is that true? I wonder why? Do they have an "official" website?

MM:

I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but my Time Out Barcelona Guide says: "If you're set on seeing a bullfight, carry on to Madrid or Seville--this archetypal Spanish activity has never had a strong following in Barcelona, and one of the city's two bullrings has closed. The other, the Monumental, still holds fights on Sundays in season, and has a small museum; the rest of the year it hosts circuses or concerts, which usually draw bigger audiences. Also, the Catalan government dislikes bullfighting, and among new restrictive regulations on the corrida is a minimum age limit of 14 for seeing a fight."

Frommers says "Catalans do not pursue this art form, or sport, with as much fervor as Castilians do."

I definitely agree that Madrid is "the" place to see a bullfight. The bullring is the largest in the world. In May we took the subway to the Las Ventas station and the bull ring is right there.

The tickets were 3 euros and up to over 100. Lots of scalpers were there. We ended up buying a ticket for 6 euros from a scalper which were excellent seats about 15 rows from the front. Unless it's the most famous matadors, it should be quite easy to buy seats I think. We were there an hour before and plenty of seats were available.

I had no idea what a bullfight even constisted of!!!!! Now I know...!! There were 6 bullfights, meaning 6 dead bulls, we only stayed for 2 and left. I got the idea after the 2nd one. I guess I never saw that part of the movies. I only knew about the matador and the red cloth, saying Ole, ole!! And before he even comes out there's less important matadors with fushia clothes. I won't say any more to disapoint your visit there.

Lastly, when I returned home and told people I was in Madrid, the first thing they asked was if I saw a bullfight. It wasn't even on my agenda to see one, until my boyfriend convinced me to see it. After that he wished he didn't go too! Well, sort of..we got it all on video! It's quite a controversy over there, some Spaniards saying it's inhuman and not a sport, then there's the other half who get dressed to the nines and sit and guzzle down soda and peanuts like we do at the ball games! ok..I'll end here, and I'm sure there will be many agreeable and disagreeable comments after this one. I look forward to reading them!

Last year my daughter and I arrived in Madrid on May 15th. I had told her about the festival of San Isidro, and how there were bullfights every day. She thought we should try to go to one, and I thought, what could be more appropriate than going on the actual dia de San Isidro! I had no idea if we could get tickets, but we headed up to Ventas a couple of hours ahead of time to see.

Because it was a holiday there were people everywhere! The sign on the ticket window said "no hay billetes" but we had barely seen the sign when up popped a man at my side with tickets to scalp. Well, as you can imagine after a mere 6 hours in Madrid I was pretty jetlagged, and concerned about being ripped off, but I looked at the tickets. He was asking 2,000 pesetas each. At that point I didn't have a real grasp of the value of the peseta yet, but 2000 didn't seem like that much. I didn't even think to haggle, or ask where the seats were--all I could think of was, is this a real ticket? For today? The date was right, so I bought them, and we repaired to a nearby bar for refreshment. Then I noticed that the face value on the tickets was 500 pesetas each. Ok, well, I hadn't expected to snag a bargain buying at the last minute anyway, but where *were* the seats? What's this? Anda...andanada? Can you say nosebleed section in Spanish?

I'd seen a bullfight before, when I was a student in Granada during the Franco years, so I knew what was going to happen, and I thought my daughter did too, but she didn't. The first fight was the bloodiest, and she was quite upset. But what an introduction to Spain! Here we were, practically at the top of Ventas, the Carnegie Hall of bullrings, crammed (and I *do* mean crammed) in among all kinds of regular folks on concrete benches (thankfully my daughter noticed the seat cushions available to rent--very cheap, don't skip this step!) trying to figure out what was going on (there's no program provided, only the signs the guy in the center of the ring holds up occasionally). I would ask the guy sitting next to me simple questions (que pasa ahora? etc.), and struggle to understand (and hear, amid all the noise) his too rapid answers.

We stayed through 4 of the 6 fights, then left. We wouldn't go again, but we were glad to have had the experience. People always do ask if we went to a bullfight, and so we can say yes and show them our pictures.

Factoid for Alabina: Mexico City actually has the world's largest bullring ( See informational website HERE in English ). It holds 41,262 persons. Madrid's is #2 is size.