Close to the IMAX, the Planetarium has seasonal exhibitions on the solar system as well as 45- minute shows. Like the IMAX, the narration here is only in Spanish and may test...

Madrid's oldest square, home to the city's main market place in Muslim and early medieval times, contains three noteworthy buildings. Dominant is the Casa de la Villa, or City...

More than 22,000 spectators can catch a bullfight in this, Spain's largest arena, completed in 1929. Like most early 20th-century bullrings, it is in neo-Mudéjar style, with...

A short distance along C/Alcalá from Cibeles, in the middle of another traffic junction, stands one of the most impressive monuments built for King Charles III, a massive...

Slightly swallowed up in the traffic at the meeting point of the Old City and the roads in from the south-west, this neo-classical gate was one of the monuments commissioned by...

Goya created some of his freshest images as designs for Madrid's royal tapestry factory, founded in 1721. Originally it was in Chueca, but has been here since 1889. The...

The convent of the Descalzas Reales ('Royal Barefoot Nuns') is the most complete 16th-century building in Madrid and still houses a cloistered community. It was originally...

In 1405 Henry III constructed a hunting lodge here, but the first monarch to take a really serious interest in El Pardo's excellent deer and game hunting estate was Charles I...

This water tower, built in elaborate neo-Mudéjar style in 1907-11 is considered a gem of Madrid's industrial architecture. It is now home to a stylish exhibition space that...

The large church of San Andrés dates from the 16th century, but was badly damaged in the Civil War in 1936 and later rebuilt in a relatively simple style. Attached to it,...

Founded in 1464 and rebuilt for Queen Isabella in 1503, this church near the Retiro was particularly favoured by the Spanish monarchs, and used for state ceremonies. Most of...

The oldest surviving church in Madrid stands just a few minutes from Plaza de Oriente. Its 12th-century tower is one of two Mudéjar towers (see also San Pedro el Viejo), built...

This impressive Mudéjar brick tower dates from the 14th century, although the rest of the church dates from much later, having been rebuilt in the 17th century.

Given the extraordinary output of Catalan modernista architects such as Gaudí in Barcelona in the early 20th century, it is remarkable, to non-Spaniards at least, that there is...