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 Crónicas de retaguardia is an exhibition of 100 previously unpublished images of life in Madrid after the 1937 Civil War offensive at the Escuela de Fotografía y Centro de Imagen (EFTI).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 were culled from an archive containing nearly 900 negatives. Hurry, you’ve only got ’til April 8th.

2. Now that Luca Giordano’s impressive fresco has been restored, it’s time to finally discover the Casón del Buen Retiro, where he is the star of the current exhibit. The building, formerly part of the royal palace housed within Retiro, is an extension of the Prado.

3. Madrid’s summer music festival scene is pretty hot with Summercase and Rock in Rio on the calendar. Best to buy your tickets sooner rather than later: the two-day Summercase tickets are now 95 euros, but will go up after April 15th. Rock in Rio tickets are currently 49 to 69 euros per day.

4. The bicentennial celebration of Madrid’s uprising against Naploeon’s troops is just a month away. Starting on the 15th of this month you can see the Prado’s homage to the anniversary: Goya in Times of War.

5. On the 27th of April, thousands of runners will take to the streets in the annual Maratón de Madrid. The race starts at 9 am; the fastest runners will be heading towards the finish line in Retiro around 11. Check out the map of the course and go animar all those hard-working runners!

See map below for places mentioned above:

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