Stand in the center of Seville’s elegant old bullring, with its cheerful white and yellow colonnades, and you can almost hear the cheers of entranced crowds echoing down the centuries.
Scrape your feet over the rough sand and you’ll get a taste of what it must be like to be a matador, standing alone and facing a 1,500-pound mountain of muscle bred for pure aggression.
This is the ring where some of the greatest bullfighters, such as the slender, saturnine Manolete in the 1930s, captivated their fans with impressive skill and courage.
It is an ancient ritual that still provokes passionate support but also intense hatred. Whatever your point of view, you can see in the visceral struggle for survival how the bullfight is a metaphor for the history of Andalusia itself, shaped by a long saga of violent conquest.
I have long been fascinated by the brutality of the ballet that makes up the six acts of a bullfight. But where do bulls come from, how are they bred and bred? Are they ever free from the fate that awaits them?
Jeremy Phillips explores Andalusia’s controversial bullfighting tradition. Above, a bullfight in the Maestranza in Seville.
The best way to understand their place in the heart of this region is to embark on a journey that ends at the top of a hill far to the east, where I finally find myself in the eyes of a Saint Coloma.
One of the best ways to discover Spain is to stay in some of the idiosyncratic properties that Sawday offers throughout the region.
So, with two teenagers in tow, we started in Seville at La Bella Sevilla, a stylish hotel that couldn’t be better located for the enormous cathedral that dominates the city, just a short walk from the Plaza de Toros.
The Real Maestranza, Jeremy explains, is the ring where some of the greatest bullfighters, such as the slender, saturnine Manolete in the 1930s, captivated their fans with impressive skill and courage.
With rooms on a charming rooftop terrace three floors above the bustling alleys, we had morning coffee gazing at the third largest church in the world from which the great square mass of the Giralda rises into the sky.
Christopher Columbus is buried in the building, but it is the high ceilings that paralyze us as we wander around feeling like ants far below.
It’s a beautiful, relaxed and compact city, and you can walk everywhere before choosing from the lively restaurants on the lively side streets.
Centuries ago, you could have sailed down the Guadalquivir River from Seville to Córdoba. But today, it’s a pleasant 90-mile drive northeast.
Jeremy stays at the El Anadio farm, in the province of Jaén, a working farm that produces top-level bulls
In the afternoon, we soberly strolled through the bullfighting museum hidden in one of Córdoba’s elegant alleys: a shrine dedicated to local boy Manolete. He also fought in Granada, the next stop on our trip, where we will rest from visits to the city in the tranquility of the Cortijo del Marqués hotel, an elegant mini-fortress on the side of a hill that is a cocoon of peace.
We had dinner in a quiet square inside the walls. It is a good base from which to explore the jewels of the Alhambra, half an hour away by car.
When our appetite for the fascinating craftsmanship of its architects is satisfied, we return to our retreat in the hills for a swim before dinner.
With each stop on this odyssey to Spain’s past, we get one step closer to the renowned El Anadio ranch where, for generations, the family of María Jesús Gualdo, a feisty lady of a certain age, has sought to create – through a subtle alchemy of breeding and experience: some of the most terrifying beasts on the planet.
In Granada, Jeremy seeks refuge at the Cortijo del Marques hotel, “an elegant mini-fortress on the side of a hill that is a cocoon of peace”
As Maria demonstrates with her daring handling of raging bulls, she feels at home in this testosterone-soaked world. In these wild hills of the province of Jaén, northeast of Granada, the famous Santa Coloma bulls (one of the four “founding” bloodlines of Spain) have been bred for generations to be sent to fight with matadors in bullrings from all over France and Spain.
We made our way up a rocky five-mile road to the ranch, which has several guest rooms, a restaurant, a patio, and a pool, but is absolutely a working farm.
So what happens to the brave bulls? They are between four and six years old and occupy a large enclosure just outside our bedroom, but behind a solid stone wall.
María sends about 30 bulls each year to fight in bullfights, earning up to 2,000 euros for a top-level bull.
Jeremy walks ‘sober’ through the bullfighting museum of Córdoba
What I didn’t know is that some bulls are saved in the ring if it is considered that they have fought bravely. The crowd furiously waves their handkerchiefs to indicate their wishes. Miguel, a laborer who takes us, proudly tells me that El Anadio has five bulls that were returned in this way.
Our visit is a unique experience and, while the place is far from luxurious, it is comfortable. One day we rode horses along the tops of the hills that surround the ranch.
At night we eat hearty dishes under the stars, with the sound of the fighting herd snorting behind the wall.
After dinner, I approach and find a majestic creature in the gloom staring at me. I know in that moment that if that wall wasn’t there, those coal-black eyes beneath the curved horns would be the last thing I would see.
However, it is not only the bulls that die in the ring. The great Manolete lost his life after being gored in the arena of nearby Linares. He was only 30 years old and was another fallen warrior in the dance of death that runs through the history of Andalusia.