Moving about Madrid Style

I've got to drag myself away from the calories for a minute just to mention some other bits and bobs that make Madrid such a buzzing city. You will spend - however long you do when you get here - a fair bit of time staring up. It is not that Madrid is a very tall city (although the Telefonica Building on the Gran Via has a certain New York stature to it), its just that, by and large, especially in the central districts, the streets are very narrow (often barely the width of a single car) and the buildings,- averaging a good six stories-, are some of the most beautiful you will find lining the streets of any city in the world. This gives many city quarters a very busy, compact, villagey feel and, at weekends especially, its hard to get away from the feeling that you are moving along in an enormous procession of gallery visitors but never quite getting to the the end of the exhibition. This is no bad thing. Madrid is a bristling city full of energy and a delightful aspect is that despite it being a city overflowing with young people, the crowds some how manage to keep an even profile of young, old and everything in between, including of course dogs to which Madrileños are especially attached - by lead and soul. There is something for everyone here so if you are feeling like you need to start taking over-fifty-pills or want to get down with a southern brat pack, then re-invigorate yourself with a trip to the home of hot chocolate, deep fried bread sticks and popular revolt. Here amongst its cobbled alleys, granite boulevards and eclectic architectural ornamentation you will find a park bench, a café lounger, a bar stool, a grassy knoll, a square of pavement or even a demonstration to thrill your senses.

Madrid is the ultimate weekend city. This has become even more the case in recent years with the explosion in low cost air carriers (boo! and yahoo! in equal measure). The result is a city frequently packed with visitors trying to stuff in the city's many tourist features. (Odd that, since many of its most attractive features are often by-passed in the process). Most visitors tend - by and large - to hang about in shoals, drifting between the west side of Retiro Park and its Gallery district (featuring the Prado Museum (http://www.museodelprado.es/), the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/home) and the Queen Sofia Museum (http://www.museoreinasofia.es/index.html), up along the Gran Via to the nearby bustling districts of Las Letras, Cuecha, Sol and the Plaza Mayor and across to to the Royal Palaces along Calle Bailen. But guess what? Stick with the masses on this one! These are all essential treats. Indeed, one of the City's great sights is a dusk view of the Metropolitan Building across from the Fuente de Cibeles, both of which are spectacularly lit up as sun goes down. However, when you are done with all that and wonder if there is a certain somewhere to sneak away and discreetly muscle in on the locals turf for a refreshment or some tapas, dinner or just a mooch around, then you need to be thinking about hot footing it to one of the following areas....

1) La Latina is located in a corner of south western Madrid still inside the old Moorish walls. Check out the maze of tightly knit streets between Calle San Francisco and Don Pedro. The masses of tourists have not quite found it yet, but they soon will and before they do, you need to experience the smart sophistication of inner city Madrid life in places like Delic (http://www.delic.es/el-sitio.php) on the lower side of Calle Baja and in the miriad of small squares reminiscent of the Trastevere in Rome, (but without the melee); a must for romantic strolls through some of the better preserved older quarters of Madrid.

2) On the west side of Fuencarral Street, the 'in' young crowd, the party people with the edge on the rest of us, have created a whole new maze of nightlife (woohoo!). The area near Tribunal is an endless network of bar lined streets, with red hot inns, clubs, music venues and new art workshops and outlets. If there is going to be a new art movement (or a new absinthe!), you get the feeling it just might come out of here; after all this is where Los Indignados got all fired up. And if you do not who they are, then you probably are not aware that there is a global economic recession in full throttle or that Amy Winehouse is dead almost a year (I apologise if the latter is breaking news to you).

3) For the gay boys and girls amongst us (and their loyal fans), Soho is still to queerdom what Mecca is to Islamists, or Coke to fat teenage mall-hogs, yet it is still a very grave one of the seven deadly gay sins to visit Madrid and not leave some pink shillings with the brothers and sisters in Chueca. Ok so its clinging on to its hard core sling for dear life and all in all a bit tired these days, but some vicious old trannies and oiled up bears are still pounding out the beats and slosh about the cocktails with the same vigour and Bette Davis (kiss you or killl you) GLAMURRR as in the pre-equality times when THE FIGHT was on. But these days, the homOs and homElles are marching up the isles all over queer old Espagna and although the new right wing "popular" government is murmuring about repealing Spain's dramatic gay marriage laws, such a move is unlikely. In the meantime, gay couples abound in mainstream Madrid life and Chueca, clicks her heals, whacks her whip and trundles on.

4) Chamberi is to Madrid what the lower east side is to New York. Duh! There's the odd ex-pat here and there and maybe a lost tourist, but apart from that it is José all the way here. The Chirpy, cheapy, fag hanging out of the mouth, beer at 11 O'Clock, Tapas from 2pm to midnight, siesta from 2pm to 5pm . . . Madrid; where the good old locals live up to their reputation for foul mouthed humour making the Irish seem demure by comparison. What??? Yes, well, have a Caña for a euro, get over yourself and suck it up. Questions?

5) Want to know how the posh residents do it Madrid style? They shop on Calle Serrano and live on the other side of Retiro Park. Just be careful you do not get hit by a Ferrari crossing Avenida Menendez Pelayo as you try to gate crash their party. Which brings me to a concluding observation worth bearing in mind. The Madrileños do not only drink and drive, but it is not unusual to see a small sized car parked up with a dozen people inside, music pumping and having a full on rave with drinks (read cocktails) being served (ice included). Particularly in the early hours of the morning, it is worth making sure the little green man is green and the traffic has in fact stopped before you put a foot on the street. One thing Madrileños do not do is pre-empt the little green man or jay walk. Alternatively, you could tap gently on the window, offer some cigarettes and flash your casually handy bottle of Smirnoff with limes (a local favourite) and you will be sitting on someone's lap with your head pinned to the ceiling of that 1992 Seat Ibiza before you can say Ritmo de la Noche. Ole!