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Madrid, SpainTravel Guide
Madrid Travel Information
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Famous Madrid Tourist Attractions |
Plaza Mayor
 The Plaza Mayor built during the Habsburg period is a central plaza in the city of Madrid, Spain. It is located only a few blocks away from another famous plaza, the Puerta del Sol. The Plaza Mayor is rectangular in shape, measuring 129 by 94 meters, and is surrounded by three-story residential buildings having 237 balconies facing the Plaza. It has a total of nine entranceways. The Casa de la Panadería, serving municipal and cultural functions, dominates the Plaza Mayor.
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Palacio Real
 The Palacio Real de Madrid (Royal Palace of Madrid), also known as the Palacio de Oriente , is the official residence of the King of Spain in the city of Madrid and it is only used for State Ceremonies. However, King Juan Carlos and the Royal Family do not reside in in it, choosing instead the more modest Palacio de la Zarzuela on the outskirts of Madrid. The palace is owned by the Spanish State and administered by the Patrimonio Nacional, a public agency of the Ministry of the Presidency. The palace is located on Bailén Street, in the Western part of downtown Madrid, East of the Manzanares River, and is accessible from the Ópera metro station. The palace is partially open to public, except when it is being used for official business.
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Lago del Retiro
 Located in the centre of the Buen Retiro Park in central Madrid is an imposing glass palace modelled on London's Crystal Palace. It was built around 36 years after its London counterpart in 1887, and designed by the architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco who was responsible for another building in the park, the Palacio de Velázquez. He had also worked on such prestigious restoration projects as the Mezquita in Córdoba and the Alhambra in Granada. The Palacio de Cristal, in the shape of a Greek cross, is made almost entirely of glass set in an iron framework on a brick base, which is decorated with ceramics. Its domed roofs makes the structure over 22 metres high. The glass palace was created in 1887 to house exotic flora and fauna as part of an exhibition on the Philippines, which was then still a Spanish colony. The exhibition spilled out into the park itself, and included a reconstruction of a native Philippino village. The palace is used today for contemporary art exhibitions organised through the Reina Sofia Museum. In front of the entrance to the palace are steps leading down into the large artificial lake of the Retiro Park. The lake contains ducks. geese, black swans and terrapins, who will swim close to the steps, or you can hire boats on the lake for a closer view.
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Almudena Cathedral
 Santa María la Real de La Almudena is a Catholic cathedral in Madrid. When the capital of Spain was transferred from Toledo to Madrid in 1561, the seat of the Church in Spain remained in Toledo; so the new capital – unusually for a Catholic country – had no cathedral. Plans were discussed as early as the 16th century to build a cathedral in Madrid dedicated to the Virgin of Almudena, but construction did not begin until 1879. Francisco de Cubas, the Marquis of Cubas, designed and directed the construction in a Gothic revival style. Construction ceased completely during the Spanish Civil War, and the project was abandoned until 1950, when Fernando Chueca Goitia adapted the plans of de Cubas to a neoclassical exterior to match the grey and white façade of the Palacio Real, which stands directly opposite. The cathedral was not completed until 1993, when it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II. On May 22, 2004, the marriage of Felipe, Prince of Asturias to Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano (known thereafter as Letizia, Princess of Asturias) took place at the cathedral. The Neo-Gothic interior is uniquely modern, with chapels and statues of contemporary artists, in heretogeneous styles, from historical revivals to "pop-art" decor. The Neo-Romanesque crypt houses a 16th century image of the Virgen de la Almudena. Nearby along the Calle Mayor excavations have unearthed remains of Moorish and medieval city walls. On the 28th of April 2004, Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid blessed the new paintings in the apse, painted by Kiko Arguello, founder of the Neocatechumenal Way. The cathedral is the seat of the Patriarch of the Indies and the Ocean Sea, an honorific patriarchate created in the sixteenth century, and subsequently an honorific title for the Spanish court's chaplain.
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Puerta de Alcala
 The Puerta de Alcalá is a Neo-classical monument in the Plaza de la Independencia ("Independence Square") in Madrid, Spain. It stands near the city center and several meters away from the main entrance to the Parque del Buen Retiro. The square is bisected by Alcalá street, although the street itself doesn't cross through the monument, and it is the origin of the Alfonso XII, Serrano and Olózaga streets. Its name originates from the old path from Madrid to the nearby town of Alcalá de Henares. Madrid in the late 18th century, still remained a somewhat drab villa in appearance, surrounded by medieval walls. Around the year 1774, king Carlos III commissioned Francesco Sabatini to construct a monumental gate in the city wall through which an expanded road to the city of Alcalá was to pass, replacing an older, smaller, gate which stood nearby. It was inaugurated in 1778.
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