Madrid, like all Spanish cities, is chockful of great spots. Visitors with limited time, however, should fit these four stops into their itinerary.
Museo Reina Sofía (M Atocha)
Rather than spending a few hours wandering dazedly through a museum, make a beeline instead directly for this museum of contemporary art’s most famous exhibit, Picasso’s 1937 masterpiece, Guernica.
As overwhelming physically as it is thematically, the piece literally can’t be contemplated all at once, but only in sections. The room leading directly onto it offers Picasso, The Context of Guernica, a selection of various small-scale studies of different sections of the whole. Visitors who find they have more time or interest should by all means check out several or all of the nearly 600 works that make up the permanent collection, including pieces by Gris, Miró, Braque, Léger, Dalí and Man Ray as well as numerous contemporary Spanish and international artists.
Know, though, that Guernica will be the piece to remember--avoid the fatigue and the guilty, rushed feeling of moving too fast through too many masterpieces.
Retiro Park (M Atocha)
Step out of the museum, and about two blocks away is Retiro Park (Parque de Retiro), with its artificial lake, miles of trails and greenery, and a few beauteous buildings including a Crystal Palace based on the one of the same name in London.
The most astounding feature of the park, however, is located at the intersection of Avenida del Cuba and Paseo del Uruguay.
It is a fountain topped by a statue depicting Lucifer—El Ángel Caído, or the Fallen Angel. Sculpted by Ricardo Bellver in 1877, it is the only public monument to, shall we say—the dark side—in any predominantly Catholic country in the world.
Bellver was reportedly inspired by a passage from Milton’s Paradise Lost, and presumably his idea was to offer up a picture of the agony of falling from grace as a cautionary tale.
This particular Lucifer, however, is a figure of such pathos—and is so good-looking to boot—that it’s easy to imagine how the essential message may have been lost somewhere en route.
Serrano Shopping District (M Serrano)
Happily, Madrid is quite an easy city to navigate—most of the main downtown areas can be reached on foot; metro stops also abound, and the metro system is wonderfully simple and quick.
If the weather is fine, visitors can stroll away from old Satanas along the Paseo de Uruguay to the Calle de Alfonso XI, which leads directly to Calle Serrano, the “golden mile” of Madrid.
This street features high-end fashion boutiques including Diesel, Carolina Herrera, Javier Simorra, Hoss and Marina Rinaldi, ending in the magnificent ABC Serrano (Calle Serrano, 61), a former newspaper emporium and now “mall,” for lack of a less odious word, replete with upscale cafes, galleries and shops.
Plaza Mayor (M Sol)
After shopping, take the metro to Sol (or, from ABC Serrano, stroll along the Paseo de Castallana to the Paseo de Recolletos, then turn onto the Calle de Alcalá until reaching the Calle Mayor, to the Plaza Mayor.
A visit here for an outdoor drink and some people watching is a deeply touristy undertaking, yes; nevertheless, no visitor has truly seen Madrid without it.
Real people are actually living in the apartments behind the more than 200 balconies facing out onto the square—or rectangle, to be geometrically precise—and thankfully there are few vestiges of the bullfights and heretic-burnings that once regularly took place here.
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