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    Berlitz Pocket Guide Madrid (Travel Guide eBook)
    Berlitz Pocket Guide Madrid (Travel Guide eBook)
    Berlitz Pocket Guide Madrid (Travel Guide eBook)
    Ebook348 pages2 hours

    Berlitz Pocket Guide Madrid (Travel Guide eBook)

    By Berlitz

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    About this ebook

    With an iconic style and a bestselling brand, this is the quintessential pocket-sized travel guide to Madrid - now with a bilingual dictionary

    Plan your trip, plan perfect days and discover how to get around - this pocket-sized guide is a convenient, quick-reference companion to discovering fun and interesting things to do and see in Madrid, from top tourist attractions like The Prado, Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, El Escorial and Plaza Santa Ana, to hidden gems, including Parque del Been Retiro, La Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida and Museo Nacional Centro dearie Reina Sofia.

    - What to see: comprehensive coverage of the  city's attractions, illustrated with striking photography
    - What to do: how to make the most of your leisure time, from local entertainment to the best activities and shopping
    - History and culture: giving you a deeper understanding of the city's heritage, people and contemporary life
    - Practical tips: where to stay, dining out and how to get around: reliable recommendations and expert travel advice
    - Dictionary: quick-reference bilingual language guide to help you with vocabulary on the ground
    - Covers: Old Madrid, Paseo del Prado, Recoletos and Castellana and Malasana and Chueca

    About Berlitz: Berlitz draws on years of travel and language expertise to bring you a wide range of travel and language products, including travel guides, maps, phrase books, language-learning courses, dictionaries and kids' language products.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInsight Guides
    Release dateJul 1, 2019
    ISBN9781785732423
    Berlitz Pocket Guide Madrid (Travel Guide eBook)
    Author

    Berlitz

    Make the most of your time on Earth with the ultimate travel guides

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      Book preview

      Berlitz Pocket Guide Madrid (Travel Guide eBook) - Berlitz

      How To Use This E-Book

      Getting Around the e-Book

      This Pocket Guide e-book is designed to give you inspiration and planning advice for your visit to Madrid, and is also the perfect on-the-ground companion for your trip.

      The guide begins with our selection of Top 10 Attractions, plus a Perfect Itinerary feature to help you plan unmissable experiences. The Introduction and History chapters paint a vivid cultural portrait of Madrid, and the Where to Go chapter gives a complete guide to all the sights worth visiting. You will find ideas for activities in the What to Do section, while the Eating Out chapter describes the local cuisine and gives listings of the best restaurants. The Travel Tips offer practical information to help you plan your trip. Finally, there are carefully selected hotel listings.

      In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

      Maps

      All key attractions and sights in Madrid are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map], tap once to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

      Images

      You’ll find lots of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of Madrid. Simply double-tap an image to see it in full-screen.

      About Berlitz Pocket Guides

      The Berlitz story began in 1877 when Maximilian Berlitz devised his revolutionary method of language learning. More than 130 years later, Berlitz is a household name, famed not only for language schools but also as a provider of best-selling language and travel guides.

      Our wide-ranging travel products – printed travel guides and phrase books, as well as apps and ebooks – offer all the information you need for a perfect trip, and are regularly updated by our team of expert local authors. Their practical emphasis means they are perfect for use on the ground. Wherever you’re going – whether it’s on a short break, the trip of a lifetime, a cruise or a business trip – we offer the ideal guide for your needs.

      Our Berlitz Pocket Guides are the perfect choice if you need reliable, concise information in a handy format. We provide amazing value for money – these guides may be small, but they are packed with information. No wonder they have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.

      © 2019 Apa Digital (CH) AG and Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

      Table of Contents

      Madrid’s Top 10 Attractions

      Top Attraction #1

      Top Attraction #2

      Top Attraction #3

      Top Attraction #4

      Top Attraction #5

      Top Attraction #6

      Top Attraction #7

      Top Attraction #8

      Top Attraction #9

      Top Attraction #10

      A Perfect Day In Madrid

      Introduction

      The heart of Spain

      Culture and nightlife

      Geography

      Architecture

      Modernity and tradition

      Options from Madrid

      A Brief History

      Spain’s Golden Age

      Madrid’s rise to Capital

      Decline and decadence

      The Civil War

      Modern Spain

      Historical landmarks

      Where To Go

      Old Madrid

      Plaza Mayor

      Plaza de la Villa

      La Morería and La Latina

      Palacio Real

      Almudena Cathedral

      Plaza de Oriente and Opera

      Puerta del Sol

      Huertas and Santa Ana

      Lavapiés

      Calle de Alcalá to Plaza de Cibeles

      Paseo del Prado

      Museo del Prado

      Highlights of the Prado

      Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

      Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

      Atocha

      Other museums

      Parque del Retiro

      Real Jardín Botánico

      Recoletos and Castellana

      Around the Paseo de Recoletos

      Colón

      Along the Castellana

      Salamanca

      Gran Vía, Malasaña and Chueca

      Gran Vía

      Malasaña

      Chueca

      Plaza de España

      South of Princesa

      Moncloa and the West

      Casa de Campo

      Excursions

      El Escorial

      Valle de los Caídos

      Toledo

      Segovia

      Aranjuez

      Chinchón

      Ávila

      What To Do

      Shopping

      What to buy

      Entertainment

      Nightlife

      Music and theatre

      Sports

      Children’s Madrid

      Calendar of events

      Eating Out

      Mealtimes

      Restaurants and menus

      Castilian specialities

      Regional specialities

      Drinks

      Opening hours, payment and prices

      Reading the Menu

      To help you order…

      The basics…

      …and read the menu

      Restaurants

      plaza mayor and la latina

      Huertas, Santa Ana and Lavapiés

      Palacio Real and Opera

      Sol, Gran VIa and Chueca

      Salamanca, Castellana and Prado

      Outside madrid

      Ávila

      San Lorenzo El Escorial

      Segovia

      Toledo

      A–Z Travel Tips

      A

      Accommodation

      Airport

      B

      Bicycle rental

      Budgeting for your trip

      C

      Camping

      Car hire

      Climate

      Clothing

      Crime and safety

      D

      Driving

      E

      Electricity

      Embassies and consulates

      Emergencies (see also Health and medical care and Police)

      G

      Getting there (see also Airport and Driving)

      Guides and tours

      H

      Health and medical care

      L

      Language

      LGBTQ travellers

      M

      Maps

      Media

      Money

      O

      Opening times

      P

      Police

      Post offices

      Public holidays

      R

      Religion

      T

      Telephones

      Time zones

      Tipping

      Toilets

      Tourist information

      Transport

      V

      Visas and entry requirements

      W

      Websites and internet access

      Y

      Youth hostels

      Recommended Hotels

      Sol, Plaza Mayor, Santa Ana

      palacio real and opera

      Gran Vía, Chueca, Plaza de España

      Salamanca and the Prado

      Outside Madrid

      Ávila

      Segovia

      Toledo

      Dictionary

      English–Spanish

      Spanish–English

      Madrid’s Top 10 Attractions

      Top Attraction #1

      Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

      Plaza Mayor

      Take a seat at a terrace café and watch the world go by at the busy centre of local social life. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #2

      Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

      Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SofÍa

      A popular showcase of art of the 20th and 21st centuries, including work by Picasso and Luis Buñuel. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #3

      Getty Images

      Puerta del Sol

      The plaza’s clock tower overlooks the bustling heart of Madrid and chimes in Spain’s New Year revelry. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #4

      Shutterstock

      El Escorial

      The palace created by Felipe II, where Spain’s Golden Age is writ large. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #5

      Public domain

      The Prado

      Spain’s rich artistic heritage is conserved in one of the world’s most prestigious museums. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #6

      Corbis

      Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales

      A unique chance to see the artistic heritage of a working convent over 450 years. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #7

      Shutterstock

      Plaza Santa Ana

      A great place to start el tapeo, the ‘tapas crawl’. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #8

      Shutterstock

      Palacio Real

      Elegant centre of royal Madrid. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #9

      Getty Images

      La Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida

      Goya’s frescoes adorn the cupola of this 18th-century chapel. For more information, click here.

      Top Attraction #10

      iStock

      Parque del Buen Retiro

      Its trees, lawns and lake make this Madrid’s most child-friendly green space. For more information, click here.

      A Perfect Day In Madrid

      9.00am

      Santa Ana

      Join locals for coffee and fried churros as the day gets underway on this classic tree-lined plaza in the city’s 18th-century quarter. Don’t miss the colourful tiled friezes on bars around the square.

      10.00am

      Green oasis

      Explore the beautifully tended Real Jardín Botánico where dahlias were first planted in Europe. Three greenhouses are filled with desert and tropical flora and there is an appealing garden gift shop.

      11.00am

      The Prado

      Visit one of the world’s greatest art galleries. Do not miss the restored Renaissance Patio de los Jerónimos. The Spanish paintings, largely collected by the royal family, include masterworks by Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya.

      1.00pm

      Art and aperitivos

      Take a break in the top floor café of Herzog de Meuron’s CaixaForum arts centre where you can sip an aperitivo and look down on the adjacent vertical garden, a rich tapestry of globally sourced plant varieties.

      2.00pm

      Classic cocido

      Madrid’s celebrated chickpea stew, or cocido, with its own soup and vegetables, is cooked the old-fashioned way in earthenware pots over charcoal at La Bola, where you lunch with locals at a leisurely pace.

      4.00pm

      Guernica

      Pablo Picasso conceived Guernica, one of the 20th century’s greatest paintings, as a protest against the Nazi bombing of the Basque village, in 1937. See it hanging alongside his preparatory drawings on the second floor of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

      5.30pm

      Shop till you drop

      Pedestrianised Calle de Fuencarral, running off Gran Vía, is the city’s most fashionable shopping drag. Here you can find hip Spanish fashion brands from Camper shoes to Custo and Hoss Intropia clothes, plus other European fashion. Cafés, bars and ice cream parlours offer retreats from the street.

      7.30pm

      Tapas time

      Enjoy the city’s magical dusk light with a paseo, or evening stroll, through the sloping old streets that link the Plaza Mayor to the Cava Baja in the medieval old town. Locals end the day there with a glass of fine wine and tapas in coaching inns and designer bars.

      10.30pm

      Flamenco

      Book ahead for the late show at one of the city’s tablaos, or flamenco clubs, like Casa Patas. Here you will witness an authentic flamenco experience and see artists perform flamenco song, guitar and dance in an intimate and atmospheric environment.

      Introduction

      Madrid was little more than a farming town on the arid central plains of Castile when Felipe II plucked it from his royal cap in 1561 and proclaimed it home to the Spanish Court. Ever since then man-made Madrid, which took the reins of Spain’s Golden Age, hasn’t stopped growing and asserting itself. Though one of Europe’s youngest capitals, it’s had time and the ambition to rival Spain’s more historic cities, including Seville and Valencia. Today it is Spain’s political and economic hub. Only Barcelona matches its metropolitan importance.

      The heart of Spain

      Behind Felipe II’s royal decree lay a clear logic: Madrid, smack in the centre of Iberia, would promote the monarchy’s authority over regional power bases in a newly unified Spain. Today, Madrid is that cohesive centre and more. It is a city to which people have migrated from all over Spain in search of new opportunities; a place where few people claim deep roots.

      Yet at the centre of the modern metropolis, a region of just over 6 million people, its medieval heart lies almost untouched, the alleyways silent at night. For while Spain has leaped forward economically since the 1970s, Madrid is no less characteristically Iberian for that and revels in its traditional way of life. Once, its immigrants were from the Spanish countryside. Today, its newcomers more often come from Latin America and Eastern Europe, but their new customs and fiestas are equally absorbed into the local pattern of life.

      One step to heaven

      ‘De Madrid al cielo’ is a popular saying, which means ‘From Madrid, one step to heaven.’ As western Europe’s highest capital, Madrid boasts spectacular sierra skies and autumn sunsets, captured by Velázquez in his paintings.

      Other regions of Spain, such as Catalonia and the Basque country, are more proudly independent in their traditions. Barcelona, Granada and older Castilian court cities possess greater architecture. Many smaller Spanish cities have finer historic quarters. But Madrileños don’t begrudge those places anything. Their city may be a planned bureaucrat’s town, but its buzzing quality of life keeps Madrid just one rung down from heaven, or so the local saying goes – and many Madrileños believe it.

      Culture and nightlife

      In recent years the city has nurtured Spain’s most sophisticated cultural life: opera, theatre, zarzuela (a form of light comic opera), contemporary dance, jazz and rock, film, circus and graffiti. All have found new audiences here, as has flamenco, Spain’s

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