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A Users Guidebook To Exotic Madrid

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A Users Guidebook To Exotic Madrid

By: Lucy Evans

On the Eastern part of the city you find the classy Paseo des Arte, with its beautiful foliage and three enormous museums, The Prado, the Centro de Arte de Reina Sofia, and the Thyssen Bornemisza, all clumped together just a conveniently short walk from each other. It's a quiet area of fine dining and private apartment complexes, with a few smaller, and dirtier museums as a back-drop for the charms and beauty of the larger three. The retiro gardens with its ponds, fountains, glass pavilions and flower gardens with blooming roses lie behind the Prado and is a decent area dipped in the shades of trees where a man can spend some cozy hours avoiding the tremendous heat of the summer.

To the West of the Paseo del Arte you can find the exciting barrio of Santa Ana, it's thin sloped lanes surrounded on either side by tiled tapas bars and restaurants. It is a down to earth, upbeat bohemian area, and has been since Cervantes and Lope de Vega made their mark on history. At one point in time, the theatres used to compete with the brothels for customer but even today, its a happening spot to be when the sun goes down. Standing room only crowds. It is less noisy during the daytime where the older locals lounge on benches and watch with amusement as the neighbourhood’s new population of trendy professionals take their fashionable dogs out for a stroll.

This wonderful looking plaza is the center of old Madrid. It's unfortunate that such a grand and imposing square, once a site used for crowning royalty and burning heretics, is now reduced to sheltering tattered tourist cafes with cheap plastic menus. The oldest streets in the city, are twisted, bent lanes that curve away from the square; these are the last echos of a city that used to be beautiful. Lined on either side with churches, palaces, convents, and speciality shops that make traditional guitars or sharpen your knives, all seem completely impervious to the slow passage of time. The newly restored Opera House resides just east of here, along with the Palacio Real, which is a wonderful exemplification of extravagant beauty.

Sprinkled below the Plaza Mayor, you will find the customary working class neighborhoods. A great portion of the area is run down and poverty stricken though the brilliant marks of the efforts for the betterment of the same are visible everywhere. There is an enticing combination of people who reside in this area, including not only the eclectic young artists with their newly opened pubs and coffee shops, but also the native people of Madrid, and North African and South American immigrants. The popular thing to do on a Sunday morning after the a Tapas crawl, is to visit the very popular morning flea market, El Rastro.

Enjoy rustic cinemas and luxurious shops as you stroll along wide Gran Via Avenue, which connects the northern section of the old city with east and west. A contrast of calm and craziness exist between night and day north of Gran Via. The hip and trendy shops and bars meshing hand in hand with the famous endless nightlife makes these places the coolest areas in Madrid to hand out in.

In the northeast section of the city, Swanky Salamanca is comprised of broad avenues containing chic apartments and fine restaurants. As soon as you spot the Ferraris, exclusive clubs and designer boutiques, it becomes obvious that money is in no short supply in Calle Serrano. Some of the nineteenth century mansions enhance the higher end surroundings, and the shiny towers that line Paseo Castellano are a wonderful point of interest for those intrigued by modern building design.

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Lucy is a part-time columnist who writes occasional articles on tourism and holidays, whilst working on airport transfers To Europe on behalf of eComparison.

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