Plaza Mayor and Habsburg Madrid

The Habsburg Core Of Madrid, Laid Out After Philip II Moved The Court Here In 1561, With Plaza Mayor Completed 1617 As A Fully Enclosed Arcaded Square · Madrid, Madrid

The oldest part of Madrid, and the reason the city has no separate city row here: the Prado (87) outranks it, so the quarter takes the row. Madrid was a modest town until Philip II moved the court here in 1561, essentially because it sat in the middle of the peninsula, and the Habsburgs then built the bit that still feels like a capital. Plaza Mayor is the centre of it, a fully enclosed arcaded rectangle that has been a market, a bullring, a theatre and the site of executions, and which now absorbs an enormous number of people without ever feeling full. Around it are the Plaza de la Villa, the Mercado de San Miguel under an iron and glass roof, and a knot of streets holding some of the oldest taverns in Europe, one of which claims 1725. La Latina to the south is where Madrid drinks on a Sunday. All of it is free to walk, which in this city is worth saying, because the three museums fifteen minutes east are among the most expensive tickets in the country and this quarter asks nothing at all.

Plaza Mayor, Madrid, Madrid, 28012, Spain

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the quarter has none: Plaza Mayor, Plaza de la Villa and the streets are public and lit at night. What has a schedule is the eating and the market. MERCADO DE SAN MIGUEL keeps long daily hours into the evening. EL RASTRO RUNS SUNDAY MORNINGS ONLY, roughly nine until three, and is the single most schedule-dependent thing here. Taverns keep late hours and many close Monday. Madrid eats late; dinner rarely before nine thirty.

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