Map of Madrid (city)

The area of Madrid you as a visitor are probably most interested in is in the middle of this map (where it says 'Madrid,' unsuprisingly). That is the Centro district, which includes the Plaza Mayor and the rest of the historic Madrid de los Austrias and is where the greatest number of Madrid's sights is concentrated. It is bordered by the Gran Via to the north (for our purposes - it actually extends beyond it) and the Palacio Real to the west (the long, light grey building next to that little dark-green square shape, which is the Campo del Moro, one of the least known of Madrid's gardens - if you zoom out a little, you will see another, really large green patch to the left of it, which is the Casa del Campo). To the east, just next to the last 'd' of Madrid, the Paseo de la Castellana runs north all the way up to the Plaza Castilla, a few centimetres off the map. Actually, it's only the Castellana from the Calle Alcalá up, the stretch of it between Centro and the big green patch (that's the Retiro park) is the Paseo del Prado, and where you find the Museo del Prado and the Museo Thyssen, on the other side of the street, the third of Madrid's "golden triangle" of great museums being the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, at the top of the Calle Delicias in Atocha.

The Puerta del Sol is also in the Centro district, and is the spot just under the 'a' of Madrid on the map. Apart from the shopping streets to the north of it, you'll find many of Madrid's most entertaining restaurants, bars, pubs, discos and other nightlife around the Puerta del Sol, especially to the south and south-east. Other nightlife hotspots are the barrios of Chueca and Malasaña, both found to the north of the Gran Via. Avoid the area north of the Gran Vía and east of Calle San Bernado at night - it has always been dodgy and of late is downright dangerous.

Getting Around Madrid. See also Madrid Transport. As you can see from the map, if you are visiting Madrid for only a day or two and concentrate on its city centre, you will not really need any form of transport other than your feet. If you are there for longer, of course, you will want to use a car or public transport. Madrid is a driver's nightmare on a par with Milan or pre-toll London, but in compensation is very well served by public transport: bus, metro and taxi. Of these three forms of transport, the metro is the most impressive and easily the most efficient, one of the most extensive metropolitan railway networks in the world, fast, frequent, generally comfortable and very cheap. As a visitor, however, you may prefer to spend your time above rather than underground, in which case the bus will probably be your choice. The EMT, municipal bus company, runs nearly two hundred bus lines with a fleet of almost two thousand buses, and even at night, there are reasonably frequent buhos (literally 'owls,' nocturnal bus lines). Taxis are an affordable, plentiful and convenient. Don't expect taxi drivers to perform miracles, though; they have to contend with the same traffic congestion as everyone else, but at least they are allowed to use the bus lanes.

Another transport possibility in Madrid is the cercanías, local railway network. This is mainly designed for commuters, but can sometimes be useful to visitors, especially moving on the north-south axis of the city. In addition, it is indispensable for getting to certain places near Madrid such as Aranjuez.

If you choose to drive, arm yourself with patience. Madrid is, frankly, saturated, and traffic jams are frequent both in side streets and on arterial roads and at all times of day and night. As you can see from the map, the city centre is surrounded by a ring road, the M30, currently undergoing road works on a collosal scale which will eventually alleviate (only slightly, I suspect) traffic pressure on the city's streets. Road works aside, the M30 is usually the best way to get from one side of Madrid to the other, whether north to south or east to west. At the moment, its southern stretch is extremely problematic, and Madrid drivers have returned to using the Paseo de la Castellana, the broad avenue which forms the city's backbone, for north-south journeys, and the Calle Alcalá or Calle O'Donnell for east-west movement. In addition to the M30, there is an outer ring road, the M40, which you are much less likely to need unless you are entering or leaving Madrid.

This streetmap of Madrid comes courtesy of those nice young people over at Google, bless their little cotton socks. It will centre where you double click, you can pan over it using the arrows (or dragging the rectangle in the overview map in the corner), and you can zoom in and out using the '+' and '-' buttons. Neat, ain't it? I have pre-selected the "Hybrid" view, just because I happen to like the look of it — if you would rather see the street map without the aerial photographs, just click "Map" (or "Mapa" or whatever it says in your language). Or select the "Satellite" view to remove the street names and other map elements.

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