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Madrid
The home city. Flat, late, cheap to eat in, and built for leaving the house.
Templo de Debod, the free sunset. Javier Perez Montes · CC BY-SA 4.0
Madrid does not photograph as well as it lives. There is no beach, no cathedral everyone has seen, no single view that explains it — which is exactly why the people who move here stay and the people who come for two days leave unconvinced. The city is made of streets, hours, and the fact that nobody goes home early.
It is also the cheapest major capital in western Europe to eat well in, and the best-connected place on the continent to leave from on a Friday night. Most of what follows is written for people who already live here: where to take someone visiting, where to go when you are bored of your own neighbourhood, and which two-hour flight is worth the fare.
Researched from published sources rather than a personal visit. Check before you go.
Published · practical details checked
Neighbourhoods
- Malasaña
- Where everybody goes at twenty-five and complains about at thirty-five. Small bars, record shops, a square that fills up every evening the weather allows.
- La Latina
- Sunday belongs to this neighbourhood: the flea market in the morning, vermut on Cava Baja after, and nothing achieved for the rest of the day.
- Lavapiés
- The most mixed part of central Madrid and the best eating for the money. Steep, loud, and genuinely multicultural rather than decoratively so.
- Chueca
- The historic heart of queer Madrid, and still the centre of it. Dense, central, and busy most nights of the week.
- Chamberí
- Quieter, more residential, better value for a long stay. Where people move when Malasaña stops being funny.
Madrid guides
Tables — 2
Tables · Market
Mercado de la Cebada
A working market under a wave of green roofs, with bars wedged between the fish counters.
La Latina1/4
Tables · Terrace street
Calle Argumosa
The Lavapiés street that is almost entirely terraces, and the best value in central Madrid.
Lavapiés1/4
Drinks — 2
Drinks · Bar street
Cava Baja on a Sunday
One short street, a great many bars, and the city's most reliable way to lose an afternoon.
La Latina2/4
Drinks · Chocolatería
A late-night chocolatería off Sol
Sample entry: churros and thick chocolate, served to people on their way home rather than out.
Centro1/4Sample
Stays — 2
Stays · Apartment
An attic room off Plaza Mayor
Sample entry: top floor, sloped ceiling, and the whole centre on your doorstep — plus the noise that comes with it.
Centro3/4Sample
Stays · Apartment
A Chamberí flat for a long stay
Sample entry: residential, quiet, better value, and twenty minutes' walk from everything you came for.
Chamberí2/4Sample
Trips — 9
Trips · Square
Plaza del Dos de Mayo
The square Malasaña is organised around, and the clearest picture of how this city uses an evening.
MalasañaTrips · Viewpoint
Templo de Debod
A second-century BC Egyptian temple, given to Spain in 1968, with the best free sunset in the city.
Argüelles
Trips · Flea market
El Rastro
Sunday morning, a thousand stalls running downhill, and a city-wide agreement to be slow afterwards.
La Latina / Embajadores1/4
Trips · Park
Parque del Retiro
A former royal garden, public since 1868, and the city's shared back garden ever since.
Retiro
Trips · Riverside park
Madrid Río
A motorway buried underground and replaced with ten kilometres of park along the Manzanares.
Arganzuela
Trips · Arts centre
Centro Cultural Conde Duque
An eighteenth-century barracks turned municipal arts centre, with a courtyard that hosts the summer programme.
Conde Duque1/4
Trips · Neighbourhood
Chueca after work
The historic centre of queer Madrid, busy most nights, and the easiest place in the city to go out alone.
Chueca2/4Trips · Street
Gran Vía at night
Madrid's one piece of genuine spectacle, best at the hour the signs come on.
Centro
Trips · Park
Casa de Campo
Madrid's other park — five times the size of Central Park, and mostly scrubland and holm oaks.
Moncloa-Aravaca
Shopping — 4
Shopping · Shopping street
Calle Fuencarral
The pedestrianised spine between Gran Vía and Tribunal, and the fastest way to see what the city is wearing.
Malasaña / Chueca2/4
Shopping · Design and vintage market
Mercado de Motores
A monthly vintage and design market held among the locomotives in Madrid's old railway museum.
Delicias2/4
Shopping · Boutique street
Calle Jorge Juan
The quiet end of Salamanca shopping: small fronts, awnings, and a courtyard or two off the street.
Salamanca4/4
Shopping · Book stalls
Cuesta de Moyano
A permanent row of wooden secondhand book kiosks on the slope below the Retiro.
Retiro1/4
More Madrid, as we find it.
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