Tag Archives: Corrida Goyesca

The annual Corrida Goyesca created by ‘el maestro’, Antonio Ordoñez, and now in its sixth decade. The corridas occur during the lst three days of the Pedro Romero Feria, and are known for being the only bullfights that occur in Ronda. This is also the time for the young ladies of Ronda to shine as Damas Goyesca, or in the best feria dresses. The corridas are split over three days, the juniors on the Friday evening, the big stars of bullfighting on the Saturday evening, and the stars of mounted bullfighting on the Sunday afternoon.

Pedro Romero Feria & Corrida Goyesca 2022

The first week in September is the one time of year when Rondeños really let their hair down and everything comes to a stop for the week long party for the Pedro Romero Feria & Corrida Goyesca 2022.

This year the dates are 30th of August to the 9th of September and the Pedro Romero Feria in Ronda is the biggest carnival event in Ronda’s social calendar, a week of partying, live shows, fairground rides, attractions, and of course culminating in the (once a year) Corrida Goyesca, the only bullfight to occur in Ronda’s famous Plaza de Toros.

Although the weeks festivities start on the 30th of August the big weekend of bullfighting and parades is the Friday 2nd, Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th of September. (The parade of carriages takes place on Sunday 4th).

Pedro Romero Feria & Corrida Goyesca 2022 program
program feria ronda 2022

Route of the Cabalgata (parade) de la Feria de Ronda 2022

On the evening of the 30th, the inaugural fair parade and the turning on of the lights with the firework display is well worth attending. The parade starts at the hotel Reina Victoria at 8:00 pm

  • Calle Fernando Morell Castelló (Hotel Reina Victoria)
  • Calle Jerez
  • Calle Virgen de la Paz
  • Carrera Espinel (La Bola)
  • Avenida de Málaga
  • Feria Ground

The firework display starts at 10:00pm at the feria ground when the rides and attractions are opened.

IMPORTANT: If you want to stay in Ronda to experience the feria and all it has to offer then don’t delay! Places will already be limited!


Most of the streets surrounding the Plaza del Socorro become pedestrian only as bars bring their kegs and counters into the street for the hordes who want to party. The last two days of the feria coincide with one of the highlights of the Spanish bullfighting calendar, the Corrida Goyesca.

The exhibition ground on the outskirts of Ronda pounds to the sound of party music, children of all ages go crazy on dodgem cars, ferris wheels, and all sorts of other amusement rides. The streets of Ronda are adorned with paper lanterns in bright colours, so many in fact that La Bola, Ronda’s main shopping precinct, actually appears to have a fake ceiling.

Corrida Goyesca

Back in 1954, one of Ronda’s most famous bullfighters, Cayetano Ordóñez, developed the idea of combining the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of Pedro Romero, a Corrida, the town Feria, and the artworks of Francisco de la Goya into a single week of pageantry. His son Antonio, known locally as ‘El Maestro’, then managed the event, and due to his friendship with Orson Welles, catapulted the event into the international arena.

Pedro Romero Feria & Corrida Goyesca 2022

Every year in Ronda several of the town’s ladies are chosen to be the Damas Goyescas, and represent the ladies seen in some of Francisco de Goya’s paintings of bullfighting and pageantry from the late 18th century. Many of Goya’s paintings were in fact commissioned by a tapestry workshop in Madrid, the aim being to print the paintings on fabric.

Read about the Goyesca ladies here: https://www.rondatoday.com/damas-goyesca-of-ronda/

Ronda town hall Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ayuntamientoderonda

Damas Goyesca of Ronda

Since the inception of the Corrida Goyesca in Ronda’s September fair in 1954, the Damas Goyesca of Ronda have been the official representatives of the city, and welcoming committee for visiting dignitaries.

The role is exceptionally demanding, not only from the level of responsibility, but also from the long schedule of training, and gown fittings before the build up to the week’s festivities.

So exceptionally popular have been the Damas Goyesca, that in 2009, a bronze statue of a Goyesca lady was inaugurated in Alameda park, directly across from the statue of Pedro Romero, Ronda’s most famous bullfighter.

Every year a president of the Damas Goyesca is chosen, usually she is a woman well respected in Ronda, someone who has earned the affection of the people of Ronda, and who is held up as a model of womanhood for others to emulate.

At the same time, fourteen younger Rondeñas are picked to support the president in her duties, typically the younger Damas Goyesca will be in their teens, and of course chosen for their beauty, as well as their grace.

Why the “Goyesca” Ladies?

Every year in Ronda several of the town’s ladies are chosen to be the Damas Goyescas, and represent the ladies seen in some of Francisco de Goya’s paintings of bullfighting and pageantry from the late 18th century. Many of Goya’s paintings were in fact commissioned by a tapestry workshop in Madrid, the aim being to print the paintings on fabric.

When Goya painted his portraits of nobility, the fashion of the day was for colourful fabrics, and matching accessories such as shoes, fans, hairpieces etc. The gowns worn by Ronda’s Dames Goyesca are not exact copies of those seen in Goya’s paintings, instead they are designed to reflect the matador designs seen in Goya’s paintings of Pedro Romero, so can be said to be complimentary rather than historically correct.

Some art historians argue Goya’s paintings of the Duchess of Alba are the inspiration for the gowns worn by the Damas Goyesca, and to a lesser extent this might be true, in that many of the simpler gowns worn by the ladies are very reminiscent. The more complex designs however have been developed in the 20th century in response to perceived fashions of the 18th century, and as such are even more stunning and beautiful than they would have been.

Each outfit can cost many thousands of Euros, everything is custom made to suit the lady, right down to handmade shoes and lace shawls. In addition, each Goyesca lady usually has another gown for less formal occasions, and perhaps a third for specific medal ceremonies.


Voicemap GPS Audio Guide for Ronda

The Damas Goyesca of Ronda is included in the VoiceMap GPS Audio Guide for Ronda.

Scan the QR code to go directly to the Ronda audio guide at VoiceMap.

For quite a few years now, the A4 printable guide has been selling steadily directly from Ronda Today and I have received many hundreds of emails from visitors, who have discovered the very best of a visit to Ronda, using the indepth information made up from the top 20 articles published here at Ronda Today.

But what better way to improve the guide? An audio guide of course!

https://voicemap.me/tour/ronda/ronda-andalucia-s-city-of-dreams-a-walking-tour



The Grazalema Guide

The best way to see all our web projects in one place is over at the Grazalema Guide.

The Grazalema Guide – Tourist Information Portal for the Sierra de Grazalema, Wildside Holidays, The town of Ronda and the Caminito del Rey.

https://grazalemaguide.com/

Pedro Romero Feria & Corrida Goyesca – 22nd to 6th September 2015

The first week in September is the one time of year when Rondeños really let their hair down and everything comes to a stop for the week long party known as the Feria de Pedro Romero.

Although the weeks festivities start on the 22nd of August the big weekend of bullfighting and parades is the Friday 4th, Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of September. (The parade of carriages at 12 pm on Sunday 6th)

IMPORTANT: If you want to stay in Ronda to experience the feria and all it has to offer then don’t delay in booking your hotel. Use the booking form to the right as soon as possible! Places will already be limited!

There is a full program of event (in Spanish) here and the dates of events are on page 45.

Tickets for bullfights and further information here…

Most of the streets surrounding the Plaza del Socorro become pedestrian only as bars bring their kegs and counters into the street for the hordes who want to party. The last two days of the feria coincide with one of the highlights of the Spanish bullfighting calendar, the Corrida Goyesca. Continue reading Pedro Romero Feria & Corrida Goyesca – 22nd to 6th September 2015

54th Corrida Goyesca in Ronda

Today marked the 54th Corrida Goyesca on the last day of the Pedro Romero Feria 2010, with thousands of supporters in the streets of Ronda to see the Rivera brothers and their bullfighting comrades in arms.

The three matadors showing off their skills were Francisco Rivera ‘Paquirri’, Enrique Ponce, and Sebastian Castella, who looked resplendent in their Goya themed outfits. Ladies in the crowd as they approached the Plaza de Toros from the Hotel Reina Victoria eagerly shouted ‘guapa, guapa’ as their carriages passed.

As per tradition, they were joined on their way to the Plaza de Toros by the Damas Goyescas and their president for 2010 Lola Riaza, who also looked absolutely gorgeous and had visitors and residents alike rushing to take snapshots of their finery.

Unlike previous years, tickets to the Corrida Goyesca did not sell out, in fact shaded seats were still available directly from the official ticket office immediately before the toreros arrived to begin the show. Handpicked journalists who covered the event described a smaller crowd than normal and wondered if this was a result of the recent banning of bullfighting in Catalunya.

Significantly fewer politicians from Andalucia and the national stage attended after the town hall in Ronda cut back on spending for a box seat and their usual dinner afterwards. As well, the Duchess of Alba who is a long time supporter of the Corrida Goyesca failed to make an appearance fueling speculation she may be ill.

Here are a selection of our photos taken before the toreros entered the bullring.

Is the Spanish Bullfight Dying?

“¡Abolición!” shouted the banners and placards. Abolition! Adorned with drawings of youths on all fours with barbs in their backs spurting blood they were held aloft by about thirty protesters on the Tajo Bridge in Ronda, fifty kilometres from Marbella in eastern Spain.

“Abolish the Bullfight”, they cried with Ronda’s most important fight of the year beginning in a few hours. The protesters, mostly young Spaniards, were watched by a squad of Riot Police and bemused passers by.

‘Is the bullfight dying?” I asked Paco, a regular in the Bar Maestro, a small place, serving some of the best tapas in town. Named after Antonio Ordóñez, a native son, and many say, the greatest matador ever, his loyal admirers foregathered there with other aficionados of the bulls.

‘No, the bullfight is not dying,’ said Paco banging down his glass on the counter. ‘You cannot get a ticket for the corrida this afternoon, did you know that?’ Paco glared at me and muttered under his breath. I was mortified. How could I re-establish my bona fides with this much respected man?

‘I was fortunate to see el Maestro fighting five times in the 60’s,’ I said. He looked sideways at me. Other heads nodded, voices approved. But Paco raised his glass to some memory of is own.

‘Read “Vanguardia’s” report,’ one called Pepe said quietly, ‘72% of Spaniards has no interest.’

The figures were dramatic. Over the past thirty years interest in the bullfight has fallen from a high of 55% in 1971 to 46% in 1980 to today’s figure of 28%.

Then Rafa, the owner, made a joke which I think went like this: ‘What do the bulls in Pamplona pray for before the Running?’

‘Please Lord, let me catch a gringo.’ Even Paco laughed at that. Paqui, Rafa’s wife brought out small dishes of paella. Good humour, never far away, was restored. I was honoured to be included by these aficionados.

“Death in the Afternoon”, Hemingway’s classic on the bullfight, introduced many of us to it.  This ritual of danger and death, bull running or fighting is central to most annual ferias in towns, villages and cities throughout Spain. Pamplona in July, Ronda in September and Seville at Easter are the most popular.

This year in Ronda the annual September shindig was in full exuberant swing, the town in an uproar.  Crowds milled about; flamenco and the whirling, laughing music of the Sevillana dance blared from temporary and ear-splitting loudspeakers outside the bars. Girls and women of all ages twirled, arms twisting sensuously, fingers coiling, heads thrown back, in dramatic pose. Men and boys clapped the rhythm, shouting ‘¡Olés!’.

Goyesca Ladies en route to the Plaza de Toros
Goyesca Ladies en route to the Plaza de Toros

Ronda, the birth place of the modern bullfight, celebrates the Goyescas, a festival of bullfighting so called as the participants parade in the garb of Goya’s era two centuries ago. Horse drawn carriages with decorous young girls in colourful finery, process through the streets.  Men and youths in the Andalusian style of tight trousers, waistcoats and Córdoba hats stalk about on tall horses before the fights begin.

About the bullfight, V.S.Pritchett, in “The Spanish Temper” wrote: “The Spaniard never lacks the courage to make the heroic gesture.  The bull is admired, almost worshipped, as the horse is in Ireland.  He is admired because he is great and capable of fury, and the Spaniard requires that furious force against which to display his singularity – the most precious of his possessions – and his courage.  Always the extremist, he likes to test his valour and his whole personality to the utmost.”

‘The bullfight is not a sport,’ said our friend Bosco back in the bar, ‘because the outcome is foreseen. It is a ritual,’ he added, believers eyes shining. ‘Primitive, pagan, maybe barbaric. ‘But,’ he concluded, ‘At no stage in the fight is it the object to inflict pain, although it is inflicted.’

Like reading Macbeth before going to the theatre, an understanding of the bullfight beforehand enables one to comprehend if not approve.  Sadly many of them descend into a crude despatch of the animal, the bullfighter being booed by the crowd. But if one experiences, as I did, the gut wrenching, frightening emotion of a great matador’s performance, as Ordóñez delivered to spellbound audiences it will remain etched in one’s mind forever.

Cayetano's Armani Suit
Cayetano's Armani Suit

It costs over €100 000 to stage a corrida with a top matador’s name. They command huge fees and have expensive lifestyles. Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez, the Maestro’s grandson, appeared this year in a Suit of Lights, as their costume is called, made by Armani. A whiff of decadence, a foretaste of the fall?

The rivals for the public’s Euros are football and basketball. Spain are the current European Champions in both sports. Tennis and golf have attractive role models also.

Nobody in the bar had been prepared to challenge Paco. But the newspaper’s figures would not leave us. None of us was under fifty-five.  And so it is throughout Spain. The corrida is dying with its ageing followers. No doubt in the midst of the recession, they were thinking of the over 100,000 people employed in the industry and the turnover of 1, 5 billion Euros a year.

Despite the two thousand year old tradition going back to Roman times, leading opponents of bullfighting recently took their cause to the Spanish parliament demanding an end to it. Parliament is currently debating a draft law on animal rights. How bullfighting will escape such a charter I do not know. The League Against Cruel Sports is increasingly active. The Spanish public broadcaster, TVE, announced that it will no longer broadcast corridas. Two years ago, Barcelona declared itself an “anti- bullfighting city”. The closure of the last bullring in Catalonia highlights its political ‘independence from Madrid’.

Protestors in Ronda 2009
However, in Madrid and the southern province of Andalusia the plazas are often filled to capacity. Bull fighting is deeply rooted in Andalusia. Like everything else the Andalusians do they do it with passion. It’s as though they had the caps lock key permanently in the ‘on’ position, the stereo at its loudest. It is in this intense, emphatic and above all passionate atmosphere that los toros, the bullfights, persist, its great exponents revered.

But the inevitable is coming. There will be more protesters. Just as Picasso and Hemmingway supported the bullfight, new names will support the Abolitionists.

My wife, Verne, unsympathetic to the corrida, asked the inevitable question. ‘12,000 bulls a year die in 2000 corridas?’ I replied. ‘And as many as 100 men are killed.’ Her silence said it all. ‘But,’ I said, ‘expect marketing innovations. 100,000 jobs will be defended.’

I see in my mind’s eye a dusty road in Spain trodden by a gaunt figure in rusty armour on a spindly steed followed by a podgy fellow astride a donkey.  One almost sees the white sails of windmills that will surely attract the attention of that wandering knight. For it is none other than my demented hero, Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza.  Is it the youngsters on the bridge who are tilting at windmills in the battle of the bulls? Or Paco in the Bar Maestro?

The Author:

Article written by Bearnard O’Riain, a published author who has written an autobiography ‘Running to Stand Still‘, an account of his years as an angry and abusive husband. These days Bearnard runs the MURAL support group which helps other men recover from abusing their spouses and families in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, including the infamous Alexandra township.