I've put together (taken from various Madrid tourist pages) this fairly long guide to the areas of Madrid where most blues will no doubt end up. Obviously, there are plenty of other things to do in Madrid apart from drinking, eating, drinking and drinking, but you can find information on that on the Internet sites.
Enjoy:
MADRID PUERTA DEL SOL
The Puerta del Sol is the heart of the city. This plaza, which is the junction of 8 streets, is officially the centre of the nation: a stone slab in the pavement outside the Casa de Correos on the south side marks kilometre zero, from where Spain’s six national roads begin. The Casa de Correos, a building of 1766, which is now the head office of Madrid’s Regional government, also houses on its tower the clock which gives the 12 midnight chimes on New Year’s Eve for all of Spain.
Travellers should be made aware that Sol and its surrounding metros are particularly popular spots for pickpockets, and are advised to keep their wallets and other valuables in a safe place. You’ll be surrounded by shoppers and tourists, making it difficult to discern what the fuss is all about. Around Puerta del Sol, there are a large number of shops and interesting places to visit. A statue of a bear pawing a madroño bush lies on the north side; this is both the emblem of the city and a favourite meeting place. Immediately north of Sol, calle Preciados and calle del Carmen head towards the Gran Vía; both are pedestrianised and constitute the most popular shopping area in Madrid.
From Puerta del Sol, towards the east runs the Calle de Alcalá. Alcalá 42, houses one of Madrid’s oldest cultural centres, the Círculo de Bellas Artes, where you can stop for an art expo, film, or a café. Alcalá continues to the roundabout Plaza de Cibeles, with the statue of the goddess Cibeles on her chariot ridden by lions, a symbol of the city of Madrid. Here, is Alcalá's intersection with Madrid's grand north-south axis called Paseo de Recoletos & Paseo de la Castellana to the north and Paseo del Prado to the south.
Towards the west run Calle Mayor and Calle Arenal. Calle Mayor takes you to the Plaza Mayor and to the Plaza de la Villa, Madrid's City Hall. The plaza Mayor, an elegant porticoed 17th century plaza is to the left as you walk along Calle Mayor. In and around the plaza, you’ll also find lots of bars and restaurants where you can try traditional dishes, though one must be careful, as the area is very tourist-oriented and some of them are quite expensive. Be sure to confirm the price of everything in advance if you don't want an unpleasant surprise when paying!
Calle del Arenal, is a pedestrian walkway that ends at Plaza de Isabel II, right in front of the Teatro Real (Madrid Opera House. Along the street, you’ll find Calle de Bordadores on your left, and behind it, the Plazuela de San Ginés and the famous Chocolatería de San Ginés, open until the wee hours of the night for hot chocolate & churros, a Madrid tradition. Calle de Bordadores is called Calle de San Martín on the other side of Arenal. Head up San Martín and you’ll arrive at a pretty plaza holding the 16th century Real Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, founded by Pricess Juana, daughter of Emperor Charles V (Carlos I of Spain), who is buried there. The interior holds 17th century Belgian tapestries.
PLAZA MAYOR
The Plaza Mayor is probably the most important architectural and historical landmark in Madrid. This almost perfectly preserved, beautiful austere seventeenth-century arcaded square, was planned by King Philip II and the architect Juan Herrera as the public meeting place of the new capital: autos-da-fé (trials of faith) were held by the Inquisition here, kings were crowned, festivals and demonstrations staged, bulls fought and gossip spread. The more important of these events would be watched by royalty from the frescoed Casa Panadería, named after the bakery that it replaced, the colorful allegories of the frescos covering the facade date all the way back to 1992.
Today, the plaza still performs several public functions: in summer, it’s an outdoor theatre and music stage; in autumn, a book fair. Just before Christmas it becomes a bazaar for festive decorations and religious regalia. Families take their children to see nativity scenes and madrileños of all ages buy wacky wigs sold around the plaza. The Christmas wigs have no religious or cultural significance -- Spaniards just seem to like them. There’s also a tourist office right on the square, at the Casa de la Panadería, and numerous overpriced, touristy restaurants with outdoor seating perfect for people-watching.
Again on the Calle Mayor, there is the Mercado de San Miguel, a cute 1913 iron market. About two-thirds of the way along Calle Mayor is the Plaza de la Villa, almost a casebook of Spanish architectural development. The oldest survivor here is the Torre de los Lujanes, a fifteenth-century building in Mudéjar style, where the king of France was kept when he was made prisoner in 1525; next in age is the Casa de Cisneros, built by a nephew of Cardinal Cisneros in sixteenth-century Plateresque style; and to complete the picture is the Town Hall, begun in the seventeenth century, but later remodelled in Baroque mode. Baroque is taken a stage further around the corner in Calle San Justo, where the church of San Miguel shows the unbridled imagination of its eighteenth-century Italian architects.
Right by the plaza, at Calle Mayor 69, is the old Palacio de Cañete, where some of the first recorded stories of paranormal events in the city occurred, attributed to the wandering soul of the Marquis of Cañete in the 17th century, right where the Tourist Office headquarters are located.
EL MERCADO DE SAN MIGUEL
Coming out of the Plaza Mayor through the archway Calle Ciudad Rodrigo we come across the Mercado de San Miguel Market, a cute 1913 iron market that houses the Gastródomo de San Miguel, a gourmet market of Spanish delicatessen, where you can taste and buy high quality products, and also have a bite, either tapas or a meal, with the advantages of an extended timetable.
Our tour of ancient Madrid continues to the end of Calle Mayor, crossing Calle Bailén and directly down Cuesta de la Vega. Here you’ll find a section of the Muralla Árabe, one of the rare surviving artifacts of Islamic Madrid. Don't expect much -a small section that dates to the 9th century and another to the 12th, when Madrid was under early Christian rule.
The Arab Wall faces the Cathedral de la Almudena, so head back up Cuesta de Vega and turn left to find the main entrance. Just past the Cathedral is the much more noteworthy Royal Palace. The elegant square in front of the Palacio is Plaza de Oriente, with the Teatro Real, Madrid’s opera house, as its focal point.
The Royal Palace is on Calle Bailén, and from this street you can reach the Viaducto de Segovia, which suspends Bailén street high over Calle Segovia and makes it easy to go the beautiful baroque Iglesia de San Francisco el Grande on the other side. The viaduct is one of the city’s recognisable landmarks; unfortunately, it is one of the places most frequently chosen for acts of suicide, and the raising of security screens has dampened the superb views over Madrid’s rooftops that it used to have.
PLAZA SANTA ANA
Plaza Santa Ana is a great place to start an evening’s entertainment in Madrid. The Madrileños will often start arriving to this area around 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Plaza Santa Ana is a very pleasant square just off Puerta del Sol and situated in an older barrio of Madrid; indeed, the house where Miguel de Cervantes (writer of Don Quixote) lived is a couple of streets away in Calle Cervantes. The square is home to the oldest theatre in Madrid, Teatro Español, which was built in 1745 and puts on classical Spanish productions. At night the square becomes one of the most important hot spots for night time entertainment.
My favourite bars in the square include La Moderna and Cerveceria Santa Ana and Cerveceria Alemana; the last two are typical Madrid bars with oak panelling, huge beer pumps and waiters turned out in white waistcoats. Another favourite is Naturbier, which is unique in Madrid as it brews its own beer - it has a cavernous basement and serves good food. In one of the streets next to the theatre, you will find Viva Madrid which is an elaborately tiled bar with great wooden ceilings. Just around the corner from Plaza Santa Ana, you’ll find Calle Huertas, which comes alive at night and has a vast array of bars, catering for all needs.
LAVAPIÉS NEIGHBOURHOOD
This neighbourhood was the Jewish and Moorish quarter outside the city walls until they were forced into exile or conversion in 1492. Lavapiés then became Madrid’s working class neighbourhood for hundreds of years and largely fell into decay until artists and immigrants began to fill its abandoned houses in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, an inevitable gentrification process has occurred and is zooming ahead. It’s now a multicultural, bohemian neighbourhood, full of bars, galleries, ethnic restaurants and cafés.
The center of the area is the Plaza de Lavapiés (where metro Lavapiés drops you). Upon entering the plaza, you will find yourself among Africans, Turks, Gypsies, Chinese, South Americans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians, and Spanish. The wealth of diversity may at first be daunting. Within minutes, someone will probably step forward, whistling, and offer to sell you hash. This is not a threat, and your life is not in danger. Shake your head “no”, smile, and walk on. You have offended no one, and you are not being followed.
A great vein off the Plaza de Lavapiés is Calle Argumosa, the place to be when the weather’s nice. It’s lined with bars and restaurants with outdoor seating, so you can partake in one of Madrid’s great pleasures, ‘las terrazas’. In Calle Lavapiés, off Plaza de Lavapiés, you can also enjoy a meal outdoors, this time with a great choice of Indian restaurants.
Again at Plaza de Lavapies, head uphill and you’ll pop back into Plaza de Tirso de Molina, named after the celebrated Golden Age playwright who created the original escapades of Don Juan. This square belongs to no one neighborhood, rather it lies on the border of various neighborhoods: Lavapiés to the south, Sol to the north, Huertas to the east, and La Latina to the west. Tirso de Molina used to be seedy and slightly dangerous; however, the city recently revitalised and cleaned up the area. Now you can enjoy outdoor cafés and a flower market.
For the Lavapies outdoor café nightlife, head to the streets of Calle Ave Maria or Colegio. The atmosphere is lively, relaxed, and informal and you will need some patience. You’ll see that many of the patrons of the bars and restaurants have dreadlocks, mohawks or shaved heads, and more often than not you will smell hash joints being passed around tables of friends. A visitor must recognize that the presence of hash in Lavapies is accepted as a social norm. But the crowd of Lavapies is not only young radicals; there are old city Madrileños as well. The café Barbieri, at calle Ave María, is one of those old cafés which preserves the atmosphere of 19th century Madrid.
There are a few places for flamenco in the area. At Candela bar (Calle del Olmo) the atmosphere is pure flamenco as gypsies and Andaluz artist performers regularly drop in and do their stuff. The jam sessions at the rear are deservedly famous, though it may be hard to get access. Casa Patas (Calle Cañizares) is more popular and touristic, but it is easy to get in and to understand the show.
LA LATINA
The Latina area is an attractive and often ignored part of old Madrid. In and around this area are the origins of Madrid. It’s difficult to put precise boundaries on La Latina, because, like its immediate neighbours, streets are narrow and wind a lot, but for convenience, we will define its boundaries as the Calles Bailen and Toledo, the Plaza Mayor and the Puerta de Toledo. Apart from being one of the most attractive parts of the city to wander about in, it is home to many particularly fine tapas bars, restaurants, and many spots for nightlife and social life centred in the plazas de San Andres, de la Cebada and de la Paja.
From San Francisco el Grande church, go up Carrera de San Francisco street. At the plaza de San Andrés, dominated by the dome of the Capilla de San Isidro, is the San Isidro Museum, which shows the different of Madrid through the ages, from its beginnings as a Muslim stronghold to its birth as a metropolis. San Isidro Museum provides an account of Madrid’s archaeological past and the material, social and spiritual heritage of the various cultures that have lived here. It also contains an exhibition of the art and traditions associated with the patron saint of Madrid, Saint Isidro.
The street Cava Baja nearby has excellent restaurants, among which are the reknowned Lucio, and fashionable bars.
At the Plaza de la Cebada is the local covered market originally made of iron and glass; it was demolished in 1956 and rebuilt as we can see today. Look out for the Calle Almendro and the famous tavern with the same name.
Not far is the Plaza de Cascorro, heart of the popular Sunday street market, or Rastro.
CHUECA - THE MADRILIAN SOHO AND THE GAY AREA
Chueca is a small but lively neighbourhood squeezed between Paseo de Recoletos to the east and Calle de Fuencarral to the west. Its epicenter is Plaza de Chueca.
Plaza de Chueca is the center of barrio activity. Cafés around the square set up tables when the weather is nice. It’s the see and be seen of Gay Madrid.
Bodega Angel Sierra is a classic in the square, keeping the flavour of a traditional tapas bar.
Chueca is full of restaurants, any type of cuisine, of style, different budgets, and with surprisingly affordable options. It’s among the most lively and cosmopolitan neighbourhoods downtown, and remarkably, the gay centre of Madrid and all of Spain. The ‘Barrio Rosa’ (Pink Neighborhood) shines during Gay Pride every June with an extravagant parade and debaucherous street partying.
Chueca is the kind of neighbourhood perfect for strolling and stumbling upon attractive establishments. Taste the forward-thinking, fusion cuisine of New York-style cafes along Calles Libertad and San Marcos (Cafe Diurno & Bazaar are two stand-outs).
Calle Fuencarral is a cool area for shopping , with the hippest shops: Diesel, Puma, Adidas, Hoss; and Calle Augusto Figueroa for top brand occasion shoes. In the Calles Almirante and Prim, one can find some of Madrid's most chic fashion and shoe shops.
Chueca is also interesting in terms of architecture. In fact, it holds some of the most beautiful blocks in Madrid. Brightly-coloured facades and intricate iron balconies characterise these streets.
