Each year, the season kicks off in the month of March, in line with the festival of Las Fallas celebrated with great pomp and extravagance in the city. Stacked up one after the other are 12, sometimes 20, fights open for public viewing. For the uninitiated, the practice might sound horrifying but to the matadors, this is art and this is identity. Some might even claim that bullfighting runs in the blood of Spain, a constant vein running through the history of the country.

Plaza de Toros in Valencia especially is an important landmark in bullfighting. Designed to impress, the entire structure is 52m across with wide vaulting brick arches and stone balustrades overlooking the city. Once inside, you are dwarfed by the 24-tiered stands that can hold up to 10,500 spectators at a time. Little has changed since it was first conceptualized and built in the 19th Century, only the names of contenders and the anxious faces of the onlookers from a dozen points across the globe. This is a practice that is indelible to understanding Spain and it is only when seated within the stand, the vast arena before you, that you’ll understand its importance to the Spanish people.