Madrid

Madrid is younger than most European capitals. A small Muslim fort, Mayrit, stood above the Manzanares river in the 9th century, and the Christian kingdom of Castile took it in 1083. For the next five centuries it was a modest town on a dry plateau, with no cathedral, no great river and no port. Its luck was its position: almost exactly in the middle of the Iberian peninsula.

In 1561 Philip II moved his court here from Toledo and made Madrid the capital of an empire that stretched from Flanders to the Philippines. The choice was practical, not romantic. A new capital in the centre could be reached from every province, and it belonged to no old bishop or noble family. The court returned briefly to Valladolid under Philip III, then came back in 1606 and stayed. The Plaza Mayor, finished in 1619, is the best-preserved image of that Habsburg city.

The Bourbons, who took the crown in 1700, remade it. Charles III (reigned 1759–1788) is remembered as the best mayor Madrid ever had: he paved and lit the streets, built the Botanical Garden, laid out the Paseo del Prado and commissioned the building that became the Prado Museum. The Royal Palace, begun after a fire destroyed the old Alcázar in 1734, dates from the same period and took about three decades to finish.

On 2 May 1808, residents rose against French troops in the streets around the Puerta del Sol. The repression the next day was painted by Goya and remains one of the best-known images of the war. Through the 19th century the city grew on a planned grid to the east, the Ensanche, and the railways arrived. Gran Vía, cut through the old streets from 1910, was the great modernising project of the early 20th century.

The Civil War (1936–1939) put Madrid on the front line, with a siege that lasted almost three years and shaped the Franco-era city. After Franco died in 1975 the city changed fast. The movida of the 1980s made Malasaña a centre of music, film and nightlife, the democratic city government rebuilt parks and museums, and Spain joined the European Community in 1986. Today about 3.4 million people live in the city and nearly seven million in the region.

Madrid's reputation as an art city rests on a stretch of the Paseo del Prado a little over a kilometre long. Within it stand the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Reina Sofía and, close by, CaixaForum and the Royal Botanical Garden. In 2021 UNESCO listed the Paseo del Prado and the Retiro together as a cultural landscape, recognising the way the boulevard, the gardens and the museums were planned as a single ensemble of science and art.

The Prado holds the royal collection, so it is strongest where the Spanish kings had taste and power: Velázquez, who was court painter to Philip IV, Goya, El Greco, Ribera and Murillo, plus deep holdings of Flemish and Italian painting that came through Habsburg territories. Las Meninas, Velázquez's 1656 group portrait of the royal family, is the painting most visitors come for. The advice that works is to choose three rooms and see them well, rather than to walk the whole building.

The Reina Sofía takes over where the Prado stops. Its centrepiece is Picasso's Guernica, painted in 1937 for the Spanish pavilion at the Paris World's Fair after the bombing of the Basque town, and shown here since 1992 after decades abroad. Around it are rooms of Dalí, Miró and the Spanish avant-garde, and a set of rooms that puts the painting in its political setting. Allow time to sit in front of it; the room is often crowded.

The Thyssen-Bornemisza is the museum that most visitors finish and enjoy. The collection assembled by the Thyssen-Bornemisza family was bought by Spain in 1993 for a much lower price than its market value, and it fills the gaps in the other two: Italian primitives, Dutch portraits, Impressionists, German Expressionists and American painting. It is arranged in time order from the top floor, so you can walk downhill through seven centuries.

Practical rules make the museums easier. Book timed tickets online for the Prado and the Reina Sofía in high season. Each of the big three offers free entry in a fixed window most days, but those hours draw long queues, and standing for 40 minutes before a museum is not a good use of a day in summer. The Reina Sofía is closed on Tuesday. Bags larger than a small daypack go to the cloakroom, and photography without flash is allowed in most permanent rooms.

Madrid has three street plans overlaid on one another. The oldest is the Habsburg and medieval core to the west and south of Sol, with narrow, curving lanes that follow old paths and property lines. Streets are named for trades and saints, houses are four or five storeys, and brick and granite are the usual materials. The Plaza Mayor and the lanes around it are the clearest example, and so is the Austrias quarter beside the palace.

The second layer is the Bourbon city and the 19th-century grid. The Paseo del Prado, the Cibeles and Neptune fountains and the Puerta de Alcalá, finished in 1778, mark the eastern edge of the old town. Beyond them the Ensanche (Salamanca) is laid out on straight streets with wide pavements, apartment blocks with iron balconies and the shopping streets Serrano and Velázquez. The grid is easy to navigate, and dull on foot compared with the centre.

The third layer is the 20th century. Gran Vía, opened in three stages from 1910 to 1929, was cut through the middle of the old city to carry traffic and commerce. It is lined with cinemas, banks and hotels in styles that mix Beaux-Arts, Art Deco and early skyscrapers. The Metropolis building with its winged statue at the Alcalá corner is the classic postcard. The Edificio España and the Telefónica building show how fast the city rose in the 1920s and 1950s.

The materials tell a story. Brick, often combined with white stone, is the Madrid look and the local Mudéjar style used it for towers and arches. Slate roofs cover the palace and the Almudena. The cathedral is the odd one out: begun in 1879 in a neo-Gothic design, it took until 1993 to finish and mixes a neoclassical façade with a neo-Gothic interior and a modern painted ceiling.

For a first visit the useful thing to know is how the levels work. The centre sits on a ridge above the Manzanares, so most walks from Sol to the palace go slightly downhill, and the return is uphill. Streets around Lavapiés and La Latina are steep. The Paseo del Prado, the Retiro and Gran Vía are flat and wide, and are where you can walk most easily in the heat.

The single most useful fact about eating in Madrid is the timetable. Breakfast is coffee and a pastry or tostada at 08:00–10:00. A mid-morning bite (almuerzo) is common. Lunch, the main meal, runs from 14:00 to 15:30, and dinner starts at 21:00 or later. Most kitchens close between about 16:00 and 20:00, so a traveller who tries to eat dinner at 18:00 finds only bars serving tapas and drinks.

The dish that defines the city is cocido madrileño, a slow-cooked stew of chickpeas, meat, sausage and vegetables that is served in courses: first the broth with noodles, then the chickpeas and vegetables, then the meats. It is a winter lunch and takes two hours. Other Madrid staples are callos (tripe stew), huevos rotos (fried eggs over potatoes), tortilla de patatas, and the bocadillo de calamares, a roll of fried squid that has fed Plaza Mayor for generations.

The bar is the centre of daily life. A caña, a small glass of draught beer, costs a couple of euros and in some bars comes with a free bite; a vermouth on tap before Sunday lunch is a ritual, especially in La Latina and Chamberí. Standing at the counter is cheaper than sitting at a table, and a terrace on a famous square can cost twice as much as a bar around the corner.

The weekday menú del día is the best-value meal in the city. For around €13 to €20 it gives two courses, bread, a drink and dessert or coffee, served from about 13:30 to 15:30 Monday to Friday. It is not printed at dinner and it is rarely offered on weekends. Ask for it by name: '¿hay menú del día?'.

Sweet traditions are as strong. Churros and thick hot chocolate are eaten for breakfast and after a night out, and San Ginés has served them since 1894. On San Isidro's day, 15 May, bakers sell rosquillas (ring doughnuts). Convents sell biscuits and sweets through a turntable window at fixed hours. And in December, Plaza Mayor holds a Christmas market with figures for the nativity scene, while roasted chestnuts appear on street corners.

Sol is the crossing point of the city: Km 0, the clock, the Bear and Strawberry Tree statue and the meeting point for anyone with no better idea. Just west is Madrid de los Austrias, the Habsburg quarter around the Plaza Mayor, the Plaza de la Villa and the Mercado de San Miguel. Beyond that, at the western edge, stand the Royal Palace, the Almudena Cathedral and the Plaza de Oriente.

Huertas, south-east of Sol, is the old literary quarter: the Ateneo cultural society, the taverns where Cervantes and Lope de Vega lived. Its streets have poems set into the pavement, and today it is a lively mix of bars and small theatres. Farther south lie La Latina, home of the Sunday El Rastro market and the tapas bars of Cava Baja, and Lavapiés, the most mixed neighbourhood in the city, with Senegalese, Bangladeshi and Spanish shops in the same block.

North of Gran Vía are Malasaña and Chueca, which were poor and run-down until the 1980s, when the movida gave Malasaña its reputation for music, tattoos and vintage shops. Chueca was one of the first neighbourhoods in Europe where the LGBTQ+ community claimed the streets, and Madrid Pride, held each July, fills it. Both are dense with bars, and both are quieter and easier by day.

East of the centre are the museums and the Retiro. Barrio de los Jerónimos is dignified and calm, and Atocha, at its southern end, is the main rail hub. Beyond the Retiro, Salamanca is the upscale shopping district with wide pavements and expensive apartments, and Chamberí to the north is a more residential district of good bars and old cinemas.

For a first visit, there are two sensible bases. Sol and Gran Vía put everything within a 25-minute walk, with the price of noise. Chueca and Malasaña are livelier at night and better for food, with a short walk to Sol. Quieter options are Retiro, Salamanca and Chamberí, all on the Metro, all a little farther from the sights.

The calendar begins on 5 January, when the Three Kings parade through the streets throwing sweets to children, and 6 January is the day Spanish children get their presents. January 7 begins the winter sales, and Serrano and Fuencarral fill with shoppers.

Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, closes streets in the evening for processions of hooded brotherhoods carrying heavy floats, and many museums shut on Good Friday. It is a religious event as well as a spectacle, and visitors watch from the side in silence.

May is the busiest month for local holidays. On 2 May, Dos de Mayo, the city remembers the 1808 uprising with events in Malasaña. On 15 May the city honours its patron, San Isidro, with a big picnic in the Pradera de San Isidro, dress in traditional costume, concerts and bullfights at Las Ventas. The same month brings the Night of the Museums, with free late openings.

July belongs to Pride. Orgullo Madrid runs for several days in early July with parades, stages in Chueca and a march on Saturday that draws more than a million people. It changes the city for a week: hotels sell out, Gran Vía closes to traffic and the price of a bed rises sharply. Book months ahead if you plan to be there, and consider a different week if you want a quiet visit.

In August the city goes quiet, with many families away and some restaurants shut for a few weeks, though the Verbena de la Paloma around 15 August fills La Latina with street parties. Autumn brings the national day on 12 October and Almudena's day on 9 November. And Christmas is a big season: lights on Sol and Gran Vía from late November, markets in Plaza Mayor, and most restaurants closed on the evening of 24 December and all of 25 December.

The pace of Madrid is set by the sun and the clock. Summers are hot, so daily life shifts: shops open at 10:00, close in the middle of the day in smaller streets, and reopen from 17:00. Offices work until 19:00 or later, and children play in the squares until 22:00 on summer evenings. The result is a city where the most crowded time of day is often 22:00 on a Thursday, and where the streets near Sol are full at midnight.

Greetings are physical. Friends kiss twice on the cheeks, right then left, and men who are close may embrace. Strangers shake hands. A short 'hola' or 'buenas tardes' on entering a bar or shop is the polite minimum. Conversation is loud and overlapping and does not signal a fight. Tipping is small: a euro or two, or rounding up, and 5–10% for exceptional service in a sit-down restaurant.

Transport is easy. The Metro is one of the largest in Europe, cheap and clear, and runs from about 06:00 to 01:30. Buses fill in, and night buses, the búhos, run from Cibeles after the Metro closes. Taxis are metered and reasonable. The fast trains from Atocha and Chamartín make Toledo, Segovia, Córdoba and Barcelona easy day or overnight trips.

The main risk for visitors is petty theft. Pickpockets work Sol, Plaza Mayor, the Metro, and the queues at the museums. A zipped cross-body bag, a phone in a front pocket and a healthy suspicion of anyone who asks you to sign a clipboard or tie a bracelet on your wrist solve most of the problem. Violent crime is rare in the centre, and the streets stay busy and well lit late.

Finally, respect the small rules. Cover shoulders and knees in churches, do not photograph during services, and do not touch paintings. Keep your voice low in the museum rooms and in residential streets late at night, in Malasaña and Lavapiés especially. Ask before you photograph people up close, and remember that Sunday is quiet for shops, but full for parks, markets and bars.