This well-equipped play centre is close to the Retiro and the Goya shopping area.

Still popularly known as La Colegiata, this massive church, built in 1622-33 once formed part of an important Jesuit college attended by many of the Golden Age playwrights. The...

Madrid's luscious botanical gardens were created for Charles III by Juan de Villanueva and the botanist Gómez Ortega in 1781. They are right alongside the Paseo del Prado, just...

This exciting new multidisciplinary centre in a large neo-Mudéjar building was conceived as a space for cultural interchange. Spread over four floors, the 'Burning House' is...

From its foundation in 1910 until the war in 1936, The Residencia de Estudiantes was the most vibrant cultural centre in Madrid, and a powerful innovative force in the whole...

Dedicated to the city's patron saint, the well-digger and labourer San Isidro, this museum sits on the spot where he supposedly lived and performed one of his most famous...

One of Charles III's scientific institutions, the Observatorio was completed after his death in 1790. Beautifully proportioned, it is Madrid's finest neo-classical building,...

Newcomers to Madrid find it hard to believe that this extraordinary construction, dwarfing the Plaza de Cibeles and regularly compared to a sandcastle or a wedding cake, could...

This 1880s glass and wrought-iron construction, an outpost of the Reina Sofía, is a lovely, luminous space for viewing art. Shows here often involve large-scale installations,...

The Ice Palace is a huge leisure complex dominated by a 1,800-square-metre ice rink. With a curling and skating school, a 24-lane bowling alley and a 15-screen cinema this is...

This sober, neo-classical palace, completed in 1783 and refurbished in the 1910s by Edwin Lutyens, is still very much the private property of Spain's premier aristocrat, the...

Built by Ricardo Velázquez for a mining exhibition in 1883, this pretty brick and tile building amid the trees of the Retiro is topped by large iron and glass vaults. Another...

Commissioned by Philip V after the earlier Alcázar was lost to a fire in 1734, the Royal Palace is rarely used by the royal family, and many of its 3,000 rooms are open to...

A funfair with something for everyone. The wildest ride is El Abismo, The Abyss, which is a 49-metre high roller that follows a 450-metre route of scary drops at 100 kph. There...