Overview

Mad About Madrid

Madrid is one of Europe's largest cities and unique in the absence of a Roman antiquity. Sitting pretty right in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula, this quintessential Spanish city rules the banks of the River Manzanares and was founded by the Moors in the 9th Century. It is the seat of the government and home of the Spanish monarch; a curious amalgamation of Christian and Islamic cultures and a modern, thriving Megapolis.

Madrid is a popular tourist destination because it has one kind of poison for everyone to get addicted to: For the history and art lovers there is the historic Plaza Mayor and the Prado, there is the Royal Palace to feast one’s eyes upon and there is El Cason del Buen Retiro - the Archaeological Museum. For the epicure, there is enough to decipher the labyrinths of Spanish cuisine and sample some of the fines wines of the region.

The compulsive shopper finds a welcome outlet in this beautiful city where shopping is almost an obsession and there is no dearth of objects to desire. The ‘have shoes, will dance’ crowd gets the best deal with Madrid's legendary nightlife that starts to never stop. The city’s near-raucous entertainment style may be a little too much to take for the guy who had to be dragged out of the Prado, but for those who love the night time revelry; Madrid is the place to be in.

An easy-going, charming city, Madrid doesn’t take long to turn you from a stranger into a close friend; it showers you with a lover’s attention and sends you back home longing for more.

How Madrid was born

Humans have occupied the area in and around Madrid for more than 100,000 years. However, it does not appear in recorded history till about the 9th century when Cordoban emir Abderraman II built a fortress here to defend the local population against attacks from Castile and Leon. Conquered by Alfonso VI in 1085, Madrid remained in the shadows cast by the grandeur of nearby Toledo until the 1500s. It was in that era when Charles V took favor on the city, granting Madrid the right to use the royal crown in the city seal.

But Madrid really started on the road to the city we know today when Charles´son, Phillip II, made it the capital of Spain in 156 owing to its strategic location in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula. Perhaps equally important was the lack of non-royal power centers in Madrid -- the Spanish church was headquartered safely down the road in the former capital Toledo, and the city had not built up a class of important local merchants or nobles the way more established cities such as Valladolid or Burgos had.

The city grew rapidly as the seat of government. With no navigable rivers leading to it, and with long and dusty roads between it and other population centers in Spain, the city focused very much on the crown and the court. Not only Spain, but a world empire covering most of the Americas and stretching across broad swathes of the Pacific was administered from this dusty town high on the Castilian plain.

The Hapsburg rulers oversaw the building of much of historical Madrid. The Plaza Mayor dates from this era, as do many notable churches as well as private homes. In the early 1700´s, after the last Hapsburg king died without heir, a branch of the French royal Bourbon family took the throne in Madrid. Bourbon Madrid includes the Palacio Real, the royal palace as well as the building that now houses the Prado museum.

Early in the 1800s, Napoleon placed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne. Although in many ways a progressive and enlightened ruler, he was wildly unpopular, and in 1808 the city rose up against him. Following the Peninsular Wars, the Bourbons resumed the Spanish throne, although with a growing parliamentary influence.

During this time, Madrid’s geographical isolation began to ease, as railroads connected the city to other parts of Spain. Modern urban design also began to clear out portions of the old city’s warren of small streets, whether with the creation of the Plaza de Oriente by Bonaparte or the creation of the Gran Via in the later year of the century.

The twentieth century brought continued growth and modernization, until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Battles raged just a few dozen blocks from downtown Madrid throughout the war. The city was held by the Republicans, and was attacked by the Nationalist forces under General Franco. Franco’s troops fired artillery shells into the city so regularly that the Gran Via became known as “Howitzer Alley.”

After the Civil War, a new wave of building came to Madrid as the city expanded far beyond its pre-war borders. The 19th century urban model was largely repeated in the growth, with relatively low rise six or seven story apartment buildings mixing medium population density with stores and offices on the lower floors.

Following the end of Franco’s dictatorship, Madrid served as the focus of the “movida” a wild period of new-experienced freedoms and vibrant nightlife in the late seventies and early eighties, analogous in some ways to the social movements of the 60s in other Western countries. On the political front, Madrid saw the emergence of strong constitutional democracy.

No longer the home of an empire; Madrid continues to be one of Europe’s most dynamic international capitals.

Time for Madrid

Spring is the best time to go anywhere in Spain and that is true of Madrid too. The months from March to May and the month of October are the best times to be in Madrid. The weather is mostly good and the whole city looks like someone gave it a new coat of paint! There aren’t too may tourists and you can walk around without stomping on other people’s feet (inadvertently, of course). If you love to party go to Madrid in March to be part of Madrid's biggest fiesta. You might like to book ahead though, it's a tough month for getting even closet space to sleep in.