Whoever tries to plan a visit to all the points of interest in Madrid, will realize that these are too many. Maybe a bit of organization is good, but the most sensual capital of Europe is best enjoyed wandering around its streets, cafes and tapas bars, with no direction or definite time. Upon entering the city, from the airport you immediately notice the cosmopolitan character of Madrid. The route includes wide avenues flanked by trees, large squares generally circular and a grandiose architecture. There is the central post office, similar to a wedding cake; the classic triumphant arches; the banks that look like renaissance castles and, in contrast, the potsmodern skyscrapers, like the twin towers of the Europe Gate, completed in 1996, that lean against each other, almost intentionally.
The history of Madrid begins in what was the western end of the old town, where today the monumental royal palace extends. It is there where the Moorish conqueror Mohammed I built a fortress in 852, on the banks of the Manzanares River, his fortified royal house, which he named Mayrit. After the expulsion of the Moors in the eleventh century, the Christian kings used the palace as palaces and hunting and the name Mayrit was adopted for a small settlement that would become in 1561 in the Spanish capital of Madrid.
Any direction taken from the Plaza Mayor, leads to an interesting neighborhood, near shopping streets, doors, small escalators and squares of the old town. Many houses still have facades of the style that was popular in the time of the Habsburgs, which could well be in the old Vienna or in Salzburg, as is the case of the Santa Cruz Palace, which was a prison and which today functions as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. . Madrid is an open-air architecture museum. The Bishop's chapel, in the old case, with its imposing Gothic splendor and one of the finest portals of the Iberian Baroque, can be admired in the old hospice that is today the city's historical museum.
If all this has been done in a few hours, you will surely need a break and something refreshing. Luckily, in all corners you can find a bar or a tavern where all kinds of drinks and snacks are served, such as tapas, small plates with mussels, pieces of tortilla, cheese, ham, olives, special delicacies of the house.
