Travel Guides | Madrid Travel Guide
Madrid Travel Guide
Paseo del Prado
The leafy, elegant Paseo del Arte sits on the eastern side of the city, where the three big museums – the Prado, the Centro de Arte de Reina Sofía, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza – are conveniently clustered just a short stroll apart. It’s a hushed district of fine restaurants and private apartments and a smattering of smaller, dustier museums that provide back-up for the stellar charms of the Big Three. Behind the Prado stretches the luxuriant expanse of the Retiro Gardens, filled with ponds and fountains, glassy pavilions and rose gardens; a cool refuge from the summer heat.
Santa Ana
West of the Paseo del Arte is the engaging barrio of Santa Ana, its narrow, sloping streets lined with traditional, tiled tapas bars and restaurants. It’s been an earthy, cheerfully bohemian neighbourhood since the days of Cervantes and Lope de Vega when theatres and brothels vied for custom, and it still comes into its own after nightfall when the crowds flow around the Plaza Santa Ana and fight for space at the terrace cafés. By day it’s quieter, and older locals sit on benches and watch in bemusement as the neighbourhood’s new wave of arty, young professionals walk their designer pooches.
Plaza Mayor
This square is the heart of old Madrid, an imposing ceremonial square where kings were crowned and heretics burned, now, sadly, given over to the kind of cafés which have plastic menus in a dozen languages. The crooked lanes which wind off the square are the city’s oldest, the last dim echo of Madrid’s Moorish past. They are lined with churches, convents and palaces, and traditional traders like classical guitar-makers and knife-sharpeners, all seemingly oblivious to the passing of time. To the east is the Palacio Real, a dizzying whirl of baroque magnificence, and the city’s beautifully restored Opera House.
La Latina and Lavapiés
These traditional working-class neighbourhoods are spread chaotically downhill from the Plaza Mayor. Much of the area is shabby and dilapidated – although gentrification has definitely set in – but it’s got an edgy vibrancy all of its own. Immigrants from North Africa and South America, authentic Madrileños and trendy young artists opening up bars and cafés make for an appealing mix. Don’t miss the famous Sunday morning flea market, El Rastro, and follow it up with a tapas crawl.
Gran Vía, Chueca and Malasaña
The Gran Vía swoops across the north of the old city, connecting east and west in a broad avenue lined with flamboyant 19th-century cinemas, banks and shops. The neighbourhoods to the north of the Gran Vía – Chueca and Malasaña – have got split personalities: sweetly old-fashioned by day, and unstoppably wild by night. These are the hippest areas, bursting with ultra-trendy shops and bars and famous for non-stop nightlife. Chueca is the heart of Madrid’s gay scene and currently the most fashionable neighbourhood in the city.
Salamanca
Swanky Salamanca in the northeast of the city is an elegant grid of broad avenues lined with chi chi apartments and upmarket restaurants. It oozes wealth, from the designer boutiques of Calle Serrano to the Porsches parked outside the exclusive clubs. Hidden away among all this opulence are some delightful 19th-century mansions and fans of modern architecture will enjoy the glossy towers which line the Paseo Castellano.
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