City Information

Madrid became Spain's capital simply through its geographical position at the centre of Iberia. When Felipe II moved the seat of government here in 1561 his aim was to create a symbol of the unification and centralization of the country, and a capital from which he could receive the fastest post and communications from each corner of the nation. The site itself had few natural advantages - it is 300km from the sea on a 650-metre-high plateau, freezing in winter, burning in summer - and it was only the determination of successive rulers to promote a strong central capital that ensured Madrid's survival and development.

Nonetheless, it was a success, and today Madrid is a vast, predominantly modern city, with a population of some three million and growing. The journey in - through a stream of concrete-block suburbs - isn't pretty, but the streets at the heart of the city are a pleasant surprise, with pockets of medieval buildings and narrow, atmospheric alleys, dotted with the oddest of shops and bars, and interspersed with eighteenth-century Bourbon squares. By comparison with the historic cities of Spain - Toledo, Salamanca, Sevilla, Granada - there may be few sights of great architectural interest, but the monarchs did acquire outstanding picture collections, which formed the basis of the Prado museum. This has long ensured Madrid a place on the European art tour, and the more so since the 1990s arrival - literally down the street - of the Reina Sofía and Thyssen-Bornemisza galleries, state-of-the-art homes to fabulous arrays of modern Spanish painting (including Picasso's Guernica ) and European and American masters.

As you get to grips with the place you soon realize that it's the inhabitants - the madrileños - that are the capital's key attraction: hanging out in the traditional cafés or the summer terrazas, packing the lanes of the Sunday Rastro flea market, or playing hard and very, very late in a thousand bars, clubs, discos and tascas. Whatever Barcelona or San Sebastián might claim, the Madrid scene, immortalized in the movies of Pedro Almodóvar, remains the most vibrant and fun in the country. The city is also in better shape than for many years past, after a £500-million refurbishment for its role as 1992 European Capital of Culture and the ongoing impact of a series of urban rehabilitation schemes - funded jointly by the European Union and local government - in the older barrios (districts) of the city. Improvements are also being made to the transport network, with extensions to the metro, the construction of new ring roads and the excavation of a series of road tunnels designed to bring relief to the city's overcrowded streets. The authorities are even preparing a bid for the 2012 Olympics.

The city's layout is pretty straightforward. At the heart of Madrid - indeed at the very heart of Spain since all distances in the country are measured from here - is the Puerta del Sol (often referred to as just "Sol"). Around it lie the oldest parts of Madrid, neatly bordered to the west by the Río Manzanares, to the east by the park of El Retiro, and to the north by the city's great thoroughfare, the Gran Vía.

Within this very compact area, you're likely to spend most of your time. The city's three big museums - the Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza and Reina Sofía - lie in a "golden triangle" just west of El Retiro and centred around Paseo del Prado, while over towards the river are the oldest, Habsburg parts of town, centred around the beautiful arcaded Plaza Mayor. After Gran Vía, the most important streets (calles - abbreviated as c/) are c/Alcalá and its continuation, c/Mayor, which cut right through the centre from the main post office at Plaza de Cibeles to the Bourbon Palacio Real.

Modern Madrid is enclosed by dreary suburbs: acres of high-rise concrete seemingly dumped without thought onto the dustiest parts of the plain. The great spread to suburbia was encouraged under Franco, who also extended the city northwards along the spinal route of the Paseo de la Castellana, to accommodate his ministers and minions during development extravaganzas of the 1950s and 1960s. Large, impressive, and unbelievably sterile, these constructions leave little to the imagination; but then, you're unlikely to spend much time in these parts of town.
In the centre, things are very different. The oldest streets at the very heart of Madrid are crowded with ancient buildings, spreading out in concentric circles which reveal the development of the city over the centuries. Only the cramped street plan gives much clue as to what was here before Madrid became the Habsburg capital (in 1561), but the narrow alleys around the Plaza Mayor are still among the city's liveliest and most atmospheric. Later growth owed much to the French tastes of the Bourbon dynasty in the eighteenth century, when for the first time Madrid began to develop a style and flavour of its own.

The early nineteenth century brought invasion and turmoil to Spain as Napoleon established his brother Joseph on the throne. Madrid, however, continued to flourish, gaining some very attractive buildings and squares. With the onset of the twentieth century, the capital became the hotbed of the political and intellectual discussions which divided the country; tertulias (political/philosophical discussion circles) sprang up in cafés across the city (some of them are still going) as the country entered the turbulent years of the end of the monarchy and the foundation of the Second Republic.

The Civil War, of course, caused untold damage, and led to forty years of isolation, which you can still sense in Madrid's idiosyncratic style. The Spanish capital has changed immeasurably, however, in the two and a half decades since Franco's death, guided by a poet-mayor, the late and much lamented Tierno Galván. His efforts - the creation of parks and renovation of public spaces and public life - have left an enduring legacy, and were a vital ingredient of the movida madrileña , the "happening Madrid", with which the city broke through in the 1980s. The present local authorities have adopted a more restrictive attitude towards bar and club licensing and unfortunately there has been a tendency towards homogenization with the rest of Europe as franchised fast-food joints and coffee bars spring up all over the place. Nevertheless, in making the transition from provincial backwater to major European capital, Madrid has still managed to preserve its own stylish and quirky identity.