1. Celebrate creativity in the slaughterhouse 10
A century-old neo-Mudéjar building that was once the heart of the city’s meat trade is now showing its sensitive side. Matadero Madrid, created from the old municipal slaughterhouse by Madrid’s City Council is a vast space consisting of ten different buildings. Only a few of them are being used for art exhibitions, theatre productions, lectures and creative happenings at present; this project is a work in progress until 2011, but it’s a fascinating new venue in the south of the city and the busy bar area is great for people watching.
Matadero Madrid Paseo de la Chopera, 14 (34-91-517-7309/www.mataderomadrid.com).
2. Stay up late to feel the cantaor’s passion
To the unitiated, flamenco is perceived as a joyful, colourful form of song and dance. In truth, it is really about the suffering endured by the Andlucían gypsies, expressed in performance style. You’re most likely to see authentic flamenco at a tablao (restaurant with a stage) of which there are many in Madrid. Be prepared to stay after midnight, however, when the star dancers and singers unleash the passion, power and grace.
Flamenco purists are snobbish about the scene in Madrid, but even they are thrilled by the performances at Casa Patas (C/Cañizares 10, Lavapiés (91 369 04 96/www.casapatas.com). Star performers can also be seen at the Corral de la Pacheca (C/Juan Ramón, Jiménez 26, 91 353 01 00/www.corraldelapacheca.com). Cardamomo, a small flamenco club (Calle Echegaray, 15, 34-91-369-0757, www.cardamomo.es) attracts a younger crowd. At cool, bohemian El Juglar, Sunday nights are given over to flamenco, performed by students from the nearby Amor de Dios school.To stamp and clap along to flamenco in party mode visit the city at festival time. The Festival de Flamenco Caja Madrid takes place in Teatro del Canal (www.madrid.org) and other venues around the city in February, and in May the San Isidro fiesta is the mother of all knees-ups.
3. Turn on the vermouth tap
Madrileños famously have a Sunday drinking habit, it’s all part of the attractive, leisurely tapas culture. A lesser know tradition, however is haciendo el vermut (doing vermouth). They drink the sweet red concoction, made from sweet white wine blended with herbs, flowers, fruit peel, seeds and plants, with ice and a slice as an aperitif for the big Sunday lunch, or alongside tapas.
You can drink vermouth, from the tap, with tapas, at Bodegas Ricla, which has a great line in cured venison and garlicky boquerones (pickled fresh anchovies). La Taberna de Corps also does draught vermouth and a super surtido (mixed tapas plate). Bar El 2 De is a mellow place to sup vermouth in the afternoons, but it’s rowdy by night. If you’re after traditional, Casa Antonio (C/Latoneros 10, 91, 366 57 83) is one of the oldest vermut bars in Madrid.
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4. Indulge your shoe addictionMadrid is a major producer of footwear, with the Valencia and Alicante areas dominated by shoe factories. For shoe shoppers, the street to tramp down is Augusto Figueroa, in the heart of Chueca, where you’ll find numerous outlets for factory samples. Otherwise, it’s to Salamanca for top-dollar leather goods from the elite Loewe brand, or Mallorcan gorgeousness from Farrutx and Camper. If it’s espadrilles your weary feet crave, Antigua Casa Crespo has them in bucketloads in this perfectly preserved, old-fashioned store.
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5. Develop a montecado habit
Montecados are melt-in-the-mouth, pale cookies made with aniseed and almond and lots of fat. They’re one of the heaven-sent specialities of the baking nuns of the Convento de las Carboneras, whose sweet confections are handed out to customers through a grille, as this is a closed order.
6. Have a green thought in a green shade
Madrid’s luscious botanical gardens – Jardín Botanico – are right by the Prado museum, but once you’re inside, among more than 30,000 plants from around the world, you feel as if city life has been put on hold. The same is true of the less well-known but larger Parque del Buen Retiro (Plaza de Murillo, 2; 34-91-420-3017; www.rjb.csic.es), which does not demand that you treat it like a museum (Botanico does) and where you can cool off in the shade of a 200-year-old tree.
7. Imbibe an Intellectual vibe
It’s easy to go on a Hemingway bar crawl in this city, as there seem to be few places where the writer did not drink. He and other international press hacks, along with decorative drinkers Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner, all downed cocktails at the Museo Chicote, along with just about every Spanish writer, actor or artist of the last 60 years. Hemingway reserved Cervecería Alemana for his daily beer (his table is the one in the near right-hand corner). More recently Café del Real, with its red leather chairs and old opera posters, was the place for intellectuals and artists and actors in the 1980s. Today, café society has its quintessential point of reference in the elegant Café del Círculo de Bellas Artes, where the intelligentsia frown over coffee and El País. There may be no detecable intellectual vibe at the rowdy, oirish themed James Joyce pub, but there are ghosts: the pub sits on the site of the historic Café Lion, a haunt of post-Civil War literati.
8. Dine in an old-timer
Anywhere billed as the world’s oldest restaurant is going to have the tourists beating a path to its crumbly portals, but El Sobrino de Botín is as famous for its roasts as for its longevity (300 years old and counting). That old Spanish favourite, cochinillo – suckling pig – is the dinner of choice for many, but others swear by the cordero (lamb). Celebrated past diners include King Alfonso XII’s sister in the 19th century, and more recently, Hemingway, of course.
Other venerable old timers, without the cramped nooks and crannies of El Sobrino, but with a pleasantly antique atmosphere, include La Bola Taberna, still run by the same family that founded it in the 19th century and considered by many to be the home of cocido, a huge and hearty stew beloved of Madrileños.
Casa Ciriaco was the meeting place for the intelligentsia in pre-Civil War days and is still going strong; cochinillo and partridge and butter beans are served up by old-school waiters. Casa Marta has been the preferred watering hole of opera goers since the turn of the 20th century. You can enjoy a splendid plate of duelos y quebrantes, which was apparently Don Quixote’s favourite meal – scrambled eggs, ham, bacon, chorizo and brains – although the chefs here hold the brains.
9. Eat cake in a sweet old period piece
Witht the same décor and counter as when it opened in 1830, the lovely old pastelería known as Antigua Pastilería del Pozo (91 522 38 94) is a beauty, and its cakes are little pieces of perfection.
10. Witness a bloody miracle
If you believe in miracles, Madrid can prove an auspicious city break. Many of the churches are wreathed in legend, and have statues’ feet to kiss and fonts to pray to if you need celestial help with your lovelife. The weirdest augury of great things, however, has to be the phial of blood, which purportedly belongs to the doctor saint Pantaleón, contained in the Convento de la Encarnación. This 17th century convent attracts lengthy queues of the faithful on the saint’s feast day, July 27, when the contents of the phial miraculously liquefy, bringing great things for all those who witness it.
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