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Spain... in all its gory glory: Inside bullfighting mecca Andalucia, including a stay in a ranch that breeds top-class bulls for the ring

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Stand in the centre of the elegant old bullring in Seville, with its cheerful white and yellow colonnades, and you can almost hear the cheers of entranced crowds echoing down the centuries.

Scrape your feet across the rasping sand and you feel just a little of what it must be like to be a matador, standing alone and facing down a 1,500lb mountain of muscle bred for sheer aggression.

This is the ring where some of the greatest of all bullfighters – such as the slender and saturnine Manolete in the 1930s – enraptured their fans with breathtaking skill and courage.

It’s an ancient ritual that still provokes passionate support but also intense loathing. Whatever your view, you can see in the visceral struggle for survival how the corrida is a metaphor for the history of Andalucia itself, shaped by a long saga of violent conquest.

I’ve long been fascinated by the balletic brutality that makes up the six acts of a bullfight. But where do the bulls come from, how are they bred and raised – and are they ever spared the fate that awaits them?

Jeremy Phillips explores Andalucia's controversial bullfighting tradition. Above, a bullfight in Seville’s Maestranza

Jeremy Phillips explores Andalucia's controversial bullfighting tradition. Above, a bullfight in Seville’s Maestranza

The best way to understand the place they hold in this region’s heart is to undertake a journey which ends on a hilltop far to the east, where I finally find myself staring into the eyes of a Santa Coloma.

One of the best ways to discover Spain is to stay at some of the idiosyncratic properties Sawday’s offers across the region.

So, with two teenagers in tow, we begin in Seville at the La Bella Sevilla, a neat hotel that could not be better placed for the head-swimmingly vast cathedral that dominates the city, a short stroll from the Plaza de Toros.

Real Maestranza, explains Jeremy, is the ring where some of the greatest of all bullfighters – such as the slender and saturnine Manolete in the 1930s – enraptured their fans with breathtaking skill and courage

Real Maestranza, explains Jeremy, is the ring where some of the greatest of all bullfighters – such as the slender and saturnine Manolete in the 1930s – enraptured their fans with breathtaking skill and courage

With rooms on a charming roof terrace three floors above the bustling alleyways, we drink morning coffee gazing up at the third-largest church in the world from which the vast square bulk of the Giralda tower thrusts into the sky.

Christopher Columbus is buried in the building, but it’s the soaring roofs that transfix us as we wander around feeling like ants far below.

It’s a beautiful, relaxed, compact city and you can walk everywhere before taking your pick of the bustling restaurants in the cheerful side streets.

Centuries ago, you could have floated along the Guadalquivir river from Seville to Cordoba. But these days, it’s an agreeable 90-mile drive north-east.

Jeremy stays at El Anadio ranch in the Jaen province, a working farm that produces top-class bulls

Jeremy stays at El Anadio ranch in the Jaen province, a working farm that produces top-class bulls 

In the afternoon, we stroll soberly around the bullfighting museum hidden up one of Cordoba’s elegant little alleyways – a shrine to local boy Manolete. He also fought in Granada, the next stop on our journey, where we take a break from the city visits in the calm of Cortijo del Marques hotel, an elegant mini-fortress on a hillside that is a cocoon of peace.

We dine in a tranquil square within the walls. It’s a fine base from which to explore the jewels of the Alhambra, half an hour’s drive away.

When our appetite for the spellbinding craftsmanship of its architects is sated, we head back to our retreat in the hills for a swim before dinner.

With every stop on this odyssey into Spain’s past, we are one step nearer the renowned El Anadio ranch where, for generations, the family of Maria Jesus 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 Grenada, Jeremy seeks refuge at Cortijo del Marques hotel, 'an elegant mini-fortress on a hillside that is a cocoon of peace'

In Grenada, Jeremy seeks refuge at Cortijo del Marques hotel, 'an elegant mini-fortress on a hillside that is a cocoon of peace'

As Maria proves with her bold handling of the fighting bulls, she is entirely at home in this testosterone-soaked world. In these wild rolling hills of Jaen province north-east of Granada, the famous Santa Coloma bulls – one of Spain’s four ‘foundational’ bloodlines – have been raised for generations to be sent out to do battle with matadors in bullrings across France and Spain.

We pick our way up a rocky five-mile track to the ranch, which has several rooms for guests, a restaurant, courtyard and pool but which is absolutely a working farm.

So what of the fighting bulls? Aged between four and six, they have the run of a large enclosure right outside our bedroom but behind a solid stone wall.

Maria sends around 30 off to fight each year in corridas, earning up to €2,000 for a top bull.

Jeremy strolls 'soberly' around Cordoba's bullfighting museum

Jeremy strolls 'soberly' around Cordoba's bullfighting museum 

TRAVEL FACTS 

Sawday’s (sawdays.co.uk) offers double rooms at Cortijo del Marques in Granada from £130 per night B&B, or family rooms from £180 a night B&B. Rooms for two at La Bella Sevilla are from £82 a night. Rural El Anadio rooms for two are from £108 a night. Fly from Gatwick to Malaga with British Airways from £42pp each way (ba.com).

What I didn’t know is that some bulls are spared in the ring if they are deemed to have fought bravely. The crowd wave their handkerchiefs furiously to indicate their wishes. Miguel, a farmhand who drives us around, proudly tells me that El Anadio has five bulls who were returned in this way.

Our visit is a unique experience and, while the place is far from lavish, it’s comfortable. One day we ride out on horseback across the hilltops around the ranch.

In the evenings, we eat hearty dishes under the stars to the sound of the fighting herd snuffling behind their wall.

After dinner, I stroll over and find one majestic creature in the half-dark staring at me. I know in that moment that if that wall were not there, those coal black eyes below the curving horns would be the last thing I ever saw.

Yet it is not just bulls who die in the ring. The great Manolete lost his life after he was gored in the ring at nearby Linares. He was just 30 – one more fallen warrior in the dance of death that weaves through the history of Andalucia.

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