Bull Fighting and Dancing in the Streets

Bulls, Dancing in the Streets

We have done a great deal in the last week and its diffucult to know where to begin. On Tuesday last week, we joined our friend John for a trip into Beziers, our nearest large town. Beziers has a large bull ring where concerts are often held and of course, bull fights. The full fighting is part of the Beziers Feria (festival) that takes place every year with is a mix of live bands, street entertainment, wine festival and all night dancing. We began with the bull fighting which consisted of a busy stadium of eager sports fans. Bull fighting is a sport which has a league table just like in tennis or football. As freshmen to the sport, we had no idea how the scoring worked, but by the number of boos some bullfighters received, we guessed they were at the bottom of the league.

The bulls were large creatures and very impressive to see in the ring. After some taunting, a little spearing, some more taunting and a sword to the heart, the bull lies dead on the floor. It’s complicated to describe, so I shall not bother. Some aspects of the fight were interesting, but the killing of the bull was rather gruesome. I was often impressed at how a Toreador could sometimes get a bull to charge in circles around him, or how they could stand in front of a charging bull without moving. 30 million people alone in Spain watched bull fights last year and 25, 000 bulls are killed each year. We watched 7 bulls enter the ring and only 1 walked out.

After the fight, it was off to the main festival for bull-steak and chips. Alan chose paella as he could not face meat. The festival caters for 25,000 plates of food per day during the Feria and the place was heaving. Families were out with their pushchairs, elderly couples were drinking and chatting and large crowds of French holiday makers were enjoying the live performances on the many stages. We parked at one end of the town and it took and hour to talk down one road due to the crowds.

The following day, we descended on the Feria again, this time with two friends from the village. We did not arrived until 9pm and began our evening with a jug of white sangria and a flamenco dancer. Then it was on to see an equestrian show, but all 2000 seats were taken, so it was back to the centre of the town for a live show from some dancers from Fiji followed by wine, then a concert by a band singing in Occitan before heading for one of the many makeshift bars with DJ to dance in the streets until the early hours. Below is the video to the song we loved the most.

The following day were met a new couple to the village and have seen them every day since. We have eaten them our of house and home but its been great fun.

At the weekend 9 of us from the village popped along to our neighbouring village to catch their festival as may of the acts we had seen in Cruzy last week were playing live again. We were all under whelmed at the event. The acts were the same, but the performance space was small, the villagers were not at all interest in the acts with most choosing to prop up the bar that DID NOT sell wine and we all left after an hour. It was a shame, as the act was just a good as they had been in Cruzy with there was just no atmosphere in the village. We shall not bother with that villages act next year.

Cruzy has become a hive of activity as the grape harvest has begun early. Each morning a convoy of tractors leave the village and return laden with grapes by lunchtime, and they every 20 minutes throughout the afternoon. The road outside our house is littered with white grapes and juice. Its smells lovely but makes walking in the street a little sticky.