With some fear and trepidation I’ve decided to release a big project I’ve been working on for the last 6 months called ‘The Madrid Confessions’. It’s an audiobook that contains some scarily personal insights into what it’s like to really live in this city for over 10 years… This is real life in Madrid…
UPDATE: It’s [...]

Despite being completely against bull fighting I have to admit that Las Ventas bullring is an impressive construction. Luckily it has other uses apart from the obvious one.
For example, from June through October it is used as a pop & rock concert venue, and in my opinion it is one of the best places to [...]

Notes from Madrid is taking a couple of weeks break before a slight change of format. In the meantime we’d love to know, in the comments below: what are your favourite places in Madrid? Where would you recommend your friends to eat, drink, wander, or visit if they were coming to town?

I’ve got a couple of Madrid-related things here that have caught my eye recently.
1. Madrid Me Mata has provided us with a great resource: a map of all free WiFi hotspots in Madrid. Obviously the guys at MMM need our help, so if you know of a place with free WiFi, you can add it [...]

“Para gustos hay colores.” This common Spanish phrase, meaning more or less that there are as many preferences as there are colors, sums up the state of affairs when discussing the famous Palacio Real in Madrid.
The royal palace is clearly a gem among the city’s numerous historical spots. But, when it comes to the [...]

Spring has sprung! Get out and about in Madrid to enjoy the best of it. Here are our tips for the month:
1. Crónicas de retaguardia is an exhibition of 100 previously unpublished images of life in Madrid after the 1937 Civil War offensive at the Escuela de Fotografía y Centro de Imagen (EFTI). The images [...]

This week I was one of the first visitors to Madrid’s latest attraction. In 1966 the Ministry of Public Works, finding that Chamberí Metro station could not be easily modified to take the new six-carriage trains and that the area was already well served with other accesses to the metro system, decided to close the [...]

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In like a lion and out like a lamb? We’ll see about that. Here are our tips to help you get the most out of March:
1. Flowering trees across the city are in bloom. Perhaps the best place to see them is the 25-hectare park called Quinta de los Molinos, where the almendro is the [...]

Seeing opera, ballet and other concerts in Madrid on the cheap–up to 90% off–is possible with the Teatro Real’s youth tickets program, for youth 26 and under. Here’s the step-by-step guide to getting discounted tickets to the Royal Theater’s highbrow entertainment:
1. Browse the 2007-08 season’s programación.
2. Once you’ve chosen a performance, choose a date to [...]

February is the shortest month of the year. Here are five recommendations to make the most of it:
1. So you may not like Valentine’s Day (many Spaniards I know say it was invented by the Corte Inglés), but what better excuse to grab your significant other or group of friends and relax in Madrid’s very [...]

Madrid residents and visitors alike ought to check out the Reina Sofia’s new temporary installation “La Noche Española” (or Spanish Night), open through 24 March 2008. It’s a look at the quintessential Spanish dance – Flamenco – at the intersection of avant-garde and popular culture, 1865-1936.
Brimming with caricatures, photographs, archival video footage and dance costumes, [...]

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía houses the modern art portion of Madrid’s Golden Triangle in a former hospital. The mostly 20th-century Spanish art collection is well suited to the vast spaces of the hospital: the Reina Sofía may be Madrid’s most accessible and well-organized major art museum.
I’d recommend whizzing up to the [...]

If my knowledge of flamenco (and pockets) were deeper, I’d be using this space to give you a concise and comprehensive review of Madrid’s tablaos (flamenco joints). As it is, this post is going to be more of a call for comparison. I’m hoping my ignorance will ruffle the feathers of some Andalusian [...]

(Continuing from Part 1 – Intro to the Prado…)
Entering the museum through the “Puerta Alta de Goya” (at the top of the stairs outside, so on the first floor), look at your map and head (counter-intuitively) for the basement first (numbers 100-102 on the map) by crossing the entire first floor (24-32) and descending the [...]