MikePadgett.com

Madrid

— No single landmark symbolises Madrid, just a huge collection of colourful scenes.”

In some parts of the world, such as at Madrid’s Barajas airport, the desert seems to push at the edges of civilisation rather than the inverse. The runways at Barajas are cut right out of the parched earth, their fringes cluttered by the matériel of flight.

The capital itself stands at the centre – not to say dead centre – of this desert. Any satellite photograph will clearly show Madrid as a focal point of Spain’s parched interior, with the thin, greenish vein of the Manzanares river passing by on its way down from the Navacerrada Pass.

Yet just a few kilometres downtown and you wouldn’t know it, except perhaps for the dusty wind and the dry summers. Madrid has plenty of lush green parks and cool fountains. This thirsty city reverberates with the noise of three and a quarter million clattering and breathless tongues.

Paris has the Tour Eiffel, London has Big Ben. New York had the World Trade Center. However, there’s no single structure that symbolises Madrid. All the better, since Madrid does not imprint itself in the mind as a series of landmarks. The city demands to be explored, with its criss-cross of hot boulevards and broad plazas.

See also: Madrid by bike

Strike

Our trip was affected by strike action, first in Belgium then in Spain, with the effect that our stay was prolonged by two days.

Given that we had completed our planned activities in the allotted time, we decided just to wander about for this bonus period. Eschewing the airport hotel offered by the airline, we returned to the city centre before the shutdown of public transport.

Much of the time remaining until our rescheduled flight we spent in the Barrio Huertas and the Parque del Retiro.

Barrio Huertas

Whilst the latter park is a major landmark, the former is a lesser known grid of narrow, mostly pedestrianised streets around the Calle de las Huertas, downhill from the plazas Ángel and Santa Ana. Numerous independent bars and restaurants are located here.

Having spent the later part of an evening sharing a bar with striking workers and a big television showing the Real Madrid game, we discovered Viva La Vida on the Calle Huertas proper. Open seven days a week until midnight, this vegetarian shop whose centrepiece is a marvellous self-service buffet takeaway was our choice on three occasions. We also enjoyed drinks at Coctelería El Hecho just opposite.