Here’s a walk that I have done many, many times and I thought I’d share it with readers of Mad About Madrid.

We will start off in the Glorieta del Emperador Carlos V (or the Glorieta de Atocha). Atocha station, which occupies the south side of the square, is the main railway station in Madrid, and trains from both the Madrid community and the Spanish regions arrive here. The station was inaugurated in 1851, destroyed and rebuilt in 1892.  The old terminal building was taken out of service in 1992 and turned into a shopping centre and tropical gardens. The latter is a great place to chill and take in some of the 500 plant species. Atocha station is also well-known as the place where 191 people were murdered in 2004 and you will also find special consoles there where you can leave a hand silhouette and message.

To the West of the square you will see the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Food. The building was completed in 1897 and with its Corinthian columns and winged statues on its roof is very impressive. Heading South-west of the Plaza you will find one of three museums which make up Madrid’s Golden Triangle (the other two are the Prado and Thyssen), the  Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. The art on display in this museum is mainly Spanish and includes one of the most well-known paintings in the world – Picasso’s Guernica.

Head north off the square and you start to walk up the Paseo del Prado. The word “Prado” in English means meadow and was the place outside the main city walls where Madrileños used to go for recreation. The Paseo del Prado is one of the main boulevards of Madrid and, like much of this part of the city, came about under the reign of Carlos III. Around this time the area was covered in trees and the idea was to convert it into a place with gardens and trees and with the urban design of José de Hermosilla fountains (Cibeles, Neptune and Apolo) would be added.

On the west side of this boulevard you will see the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid (Royal Botanic Gardens), again under the command of Carlos III (in 1781). It covers around 8 hectares and has around 5,000 different plants and trees from around the world in its collection. Given the uneven terrain it occupies, the Botanic gardens have various terraces for different types of plants and trees. Towards the end of the boulevard, also on the west side, you will find one of the most finest art galleries in the world – the Prado Museum.  The museum was opened in 1819  and over time two further buildings were “incorporated” into the Museum – the Casón del Buen Retiro and the Salon de Reinos. The former housed Picasso’s Guernica, when it was returned from the USA and before it went to the Reina Sofía Museum.

On the opposite side of the Paseo del Prado you will find some of Madrid’s “literary” streets leading off from there – c/ de Leon, c/ Huertas, c/ Lope de Vega, c/ Cervantes. Miguel de Cervantes – author of Don Quijote – actually died in c/ de León. Lope de Vega – another famous author lived in c/ Cervantes  and other notable Spanish writers like Quevedo and Góngora also lived in this district. That is why the barrio is now called Barrio de las Letras. At night time this area becomes a hive of activity when Madrileños and tourists hit its many bars and restaurants.

At the end of this first stretch of the Paseo del Prado, you will find the Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo – often called Plaza de Neptuno because of Neptune’s statue in the middle of the square. The fountain was designed by Ventura Rodríguez in 1782 and created by Juan Pascual de Mena between 1780 and 1784. It used to be situated more towards the Plaza de Cibeles and actually looked towards it as opposed to looking towards the centre of the city.

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st year I will be offering my own walking and tapas tours of Madrid this Easter (between 5th and 13th April  ). Here is an overview of the tours:

Walking Tour – They are designed to take people on tours of some of my favourite Madrid haunts, from streets, buildings, plazas, parks, museums and, definitely, a bar! The plan is for the the tours to last around 3-4 hours and will include a coffee stop and a beer/tapa stop towards the end.

The Tapas Tours will take you round my favourite tapas bars in central Madrid and will be combined with a running commentary of the barrios/locations we will be walking through as we do our ‘bar hop’. I expect that we will go to around 4 – 5 locations and it will take about 3-4 hours.

My intention is to take people to places that they would never have thought of going and to give valuable advice on how to make your stay
in Madrid the best possible. This advice will include useful tips and advice which you can use for the rest of your stay in Madrid, from
events, venues, bars, restaurants, ways to save money and excursions.

Seeing as it is Easter, the tour will also have a certain feel about it and I will show be showing off some of the sights of Madrid at Easter (that means we’ll see one or two churches!).

The cost will be 55 Euros (a 35 Euro deposit will be required beforehand) for the walking tour and 85 Euros for the tapas tour (the latter will include drinks and tapas in four places). I envisage that groups will be quite small – probably no more than 6 people – and suggest you email me to book your place and to find out more information.

If you’re interested in any other specific tour experiences – food, for example, – let me know.

From the 17th August to 31st August, 2006 I will be organising walking tours of Madrid. They are designed to take people on tours of some of my favourite Madrid haunts, from streets, buildings, plazas, parks, museums and, possibly, a couple of bars! The plan is for the the tours to last around 3-4 hours and will include a couple of refreshment stops.

My intention is to take people to places that they would never have thought of going and to give valuable advice on how to make your stay in Madrid the best possible. This advice will include useful tips and advice which you can use for the rest of your stay in Madrid, from events, venues, bars, restaurants, ways to save money and excursions.

The dates and times are quite flexible and prices will cost 60 Euros, a deposit required beforehand. I envisage that groups will be quite small (probably no more than 5 people) and suggest you email me to book your place.

If you don’t know what Google Earth is, here is a brief synopsis:

Google Earth is a free-of-charge, downloadable virtual globe program. It maps the entire earth by pasting images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS over a 3D globe.

The satellite pictures of Madrid, though not as perfect as a city like New York, are still superb and allow you to clearly make out buildings,streets and parks. The Retiro Park and Royal Palace are clearly visible and you can even overlay roads to see the main streets of the city. It is not a bad tool to use if you plan to do some walks around the city and over time I’m sure the quality of images will get even better. There is another satellite mapping service for the Madrid region called Geomadrid but I don’t believe the quality of the images and its presentation is as good.

In order to use the software you will need to download it on to your desktop.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I had the pleasure of travelling around Madrid in a very different way – on a Segway. If you’re not familiar with a Segway, here’s a definition from Wikipedia:

The Segway HT is a two-wheeled, self-balancing, computer-controlled, electrically-powered gyroscopic light-mode transportation device

Computers and motors in the base keep the Segway upright at all times. Users lean forward to move forward, and back to move backwards. Turning is done mechanically via hand control. Segways are driven by quiet, non-polluting electric motors at up to 12.5 mph (10 mph in the
P-series).

Antony Bruce, a Scotsman with a South African accent (or so I thought!), is the owner of Madrid Segs, a company which offers visitors, and even locals, a new way to explore the city. Though the company has not been going long, Antony is an expert Segway user who makes client security a key priority.

Madrid Segs takes people around the streets of Madrid, which means that like most people we had to have a little bit of training beforehand. Using a Segway is a slight shock to the system – you move your body forward to go forward and backwards to stop, turning the handle makes you go right or left – though it didn’t take us long to get to grips with how it worked. Having worked out the basics Antony let us out on the streets of Madrid.

First stop was the Sabatini Gardens, next to the Palacio Real, where Antony gave us a brief history of the Palace and the Alcazar, which stood on the same spot before it. For someone who has only lived in Madrid a short period of time, his knowledge of the city is very good and both my wife and I learnt something new about the city. From here we travelled over to the Plaza de Oriente before heading down to the Almudena Cathedral.

A typical outing on the Segway will take in Plaza Mayor, Madrid de los Austrias, Barrio de los Letras, Prado Museum, Plaza de España and the Templo de Debod and Paseo de Pintor Roasles – a beautiful part of Madrid that most tourists don’t tend to go to. The routes are well thought out and there are few obstacles – Antony has never had any incident with his Segways.

The price of 60 Euros for around two and a half hours includes a ‘pit stop’ for a drink in Plaza Mayor and was certainly worth every ‘centimo’! Antony even managed to take some pictures of us on the Segways and post them to an online account for viewing when we got home.

For more information, visit the MadSegs site or email Antony.