Bienvenue de la Arles

We took a day trip to Arles today to experience their weekend long festival, La Feria. The main event of this 3 or 4 day long festival? Bullfights. Initiated as a Spanish tradition, bullfights are now being outlawed in Spain. Presently, they are still legal in France.

This ancient ceremony was performed in a preserved Roman amphitheatre. The masses poured in to pay their 15euros to see gallantry and gore. The photography students zoomed in their lenses to capture the angry bulls trying to thrust the matadores with their horns--charging around in cirlces, occasionally ripping down the capote or mulea, trampling and biting it. Some photographed to document, some photographed to give fuel to the opponents of this sport.

I saw 6 bulls slaughtered--run until they were exhausted and dehydrated. Pierced, pinched, aggrevated and finally stabbed--the crowds cheered, oowwed and ahhd, booed, clapped, threw flowers, waved hankerchiefs.

Honestly, I'm a little stunned. A few times the bulls got their revenge and knocked the novices and trampled on top of them. However, in the end, the sword won.

It was a little taste of the Roman thirst for blood in entertainment.