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French style bullfighting April and may near arles?

Any tips to find info and schedule on French style bullfight? Thanks

Posted by
559 posts

Hello,

I was in Arles in July and at the time, their bull games happened on Wednesday nights. I'm not sure if this is the same in the Springtime though. I would suggest checking on the Arles tourism website if no one here has the answer. You can click on the British flag to get it in English.

http://www.arlestourisme.com/home.html

Posted by
2460 posts

The Nimes tourist page, or maybe it was the city congres, lists the courses camargaises that are going on in the surrounding towns, including the tauro piscine shows.
BTW, I went to the Arles arena for the Wednesday course, and it happened to be a beginner's night, so it was interesting for the first half-hour or so, then got pretty repetitive...

Posted by
396 posts

Prior to our trip I had trouble finding information about the bullfight schedules too. I found this website very useful: http://www.ffcc.info Click on Les Calendrier des Courses. The schedule also provides some feeling for the level of the participants of the event, particularly of the bulls. When we were staying near Arles in May it seemed like there were one or more bullfights somewhere in the region almost every day. We attended a course camarguaise in Cabannes in a very intimate-sized ring. We selected Cabannes because it was somewhat close to St Remy where we were staying, and the date/time fit our itinerary. There were 6-8 bulls. The ticket prices were inexpensive. They were cooking crepes on a hotplate outside the entrance so we purchased a snack. We could have sat in the first row if we wanted to. The first row was close enough to the actual ring that people sometimes had to move out of the way quickly if one of the bullfighters jumped over the wall to escape from the bull. The level of the bulls and fighters was not high, but we enjoyed it because of the local flavor and nearness and intensity of the event. People just came and went during the event, so we didn't have to stay until the end. It was a little bloody - the bull in it's anger bloodied itself mostly against the walls of the ring. A couple of the 'matadors' (I'm know I'm using the wrong word here) were grazed by the bull and were bleeding. My young adult daughters had a little trouble with the blood, but we all had a lot of respect for the bravery of the participants. BTW, all of what I just wrote was about the course camargaise style.