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I had a 4 day city-break in Madrid, there’s a lot to do and its a really beautiful city. Madrid is known as the political, economic and cultural centre of Spain. It felt like a cross between London and Barcelona, lots of great architecture, museums, theatres, palaces, shopping districts, parks and food.
The Mercado de San Miguel was our favourite spot to eat, it was a beautiful market full of all kinds of fresh food and it had a really lively atmosphere. We also ventured to the Mercado de San Anton which was off the tourist trail and a beautiful renovated market however it was quiet and food didn’t look as fresh because it sat there most of the day. I think its best to go there on the weekends as it was really a beautiful market but lacked atmosphere.
Plaza Mayor has a great selection of Tapas restaurants, its a place full of character with quaint cobbled streets, statues and retro style street-lights with beautiful buildings. Street performers are scattered all over Madrid, drawing crowds and creating a really nice atmosphere in the evenings. We stayed in Puerta Del Sol which is a really great location, everything is within walking distance and at night plenty of shows go on in the square.
We walked to the Prado Museum and Parque del Buen Retiro , the park is definitely worth having a stroll around and maybe a boat ride, was 40 degrees when we went so we skipped that. The Prado houses the greatest collection of Spanish Art dating back to the 12th Century. I loved the works of Hieronymus Bosch, his pieces depict a deep insight into man’s desires and deepest fears and you really need to take a seat and the time to analyse because his paintings unveil so many different topics in one piece, his pictures definitely paint more then a thousand words. I feel he was an artist very much ahead of his time, he used art the way Shakespeare used theatre, to comment on the human psyche, society and behaviour. My favourite piece from him is The Garden of Earthly Delights:
We checked out the night-life in Madrid too, Ten Con Ten is a great bar but don’t eat there, the food was awful however the atmosphere in the bar area is nice. We headed out to Opium from there, it was a little pretentious but a really nice club, felt like we were in Dubai, we made the most of it and danced the night away. It was a really great city, most things were really cheap and shopping is definitely cheaper then London or Dubai. I thought four days was a good amount of time to see all the main hotspots and would highly recommend a city-break in Madrid.