The neo-Mudejar exterior
Red brick, horseshoe arches and coloured tiles bearing the coats of arms of Spain's provinces.
Luis García (Zaqarbal) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · MarcusObal — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Clercq, Louis de (1837-1901). Photographe — Public domain · Américo Toledano — CC BY-SA 4.0
Yes. The daytime audio-guide tour covers the stands and the arena floor with no live event, and the bullfighting museum beside it is free and can be visited on its own without a ticket. Tickets for actual bullfights are sold separately, for other dates.
Metro Ventas, on lines 2 and 5, comes out right at the ring on Calle de Alcalá. From Sol it is a straight run on line 2; from Atocha or the museum triangle you need a change and it takes longer. No car or taxi needed.
No. It comes in several European and Asian languages, English, Spanish and French among them, but not Arabic, so plan on using English.
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Las Ventas is a big red-brick bullring in eastern Madrid, opened in 1931 in the neo-Mudejar style — the brick-and-tile revival of Spain's Hispano-Moorish building tradition. Most visitors come for the building rather than a bullfight: the tiered stands, the sand, the coloured tiles with Spain's provincial coats of arms. The paid audio-guide tour puts you on the arena floor and in the matadors' passages. The museum is separate: its own entrance, free admission, Goya's bullfighting engravings, matadors' costumes and capes, a room for Manolete. Fifteen minutes covers it. Bullfighting itself is contested: its last act turns on killing the bull before a crowd, and many Spaniards oppose it. The daytime tour has no live event, but it stops about two hours before a show and can close for whole days around fights and concerts. It sits well outside the museum triangle, in ordinary residential Madrid. Metro Ventas comes up almost at the gates, about twelve minutes from Sol on line 2, longer from the museum triangle, which needs a change. If your days are short, the Prado comes first.
Red brick, horseshoe arches and coloured tiles bearing the coats of arms of Spain's provinces.
The tour puts you on the arena floor and in the passages under the stands, which is the best part of it.
Goya's bullfighting engravings, matadors' costumes and capes, and a room given over to Manolete — small enough to see in fifteen minutes, and worth stepping into precisely because it costs nothing.
Calle de Alcalá 237, 28028 Madrid