Plaza de Toros de Valencia

This guide to the Plaza de Toros de Valencia opens with a seat count that has shrunk again and again since the bullring first went up. You'll hear how governor and architect Sebastian Monleon Estelles set out in 1850 to build something huge, how the money ran out after three stone tiers, and how cholera and cheap brick reshaped the design before it finally opened in 1859 to nearly seventeen thousand people. From there the guide follows the arena into the twentieth century, into a very different use for these same brick arches after the civil war.