Madrid

Madrid

“White taxis, slamming doors
A true mix of feelings
Madrid, Madrid, you drive me crazy
From swaying your hips so much, they’re going to laugh at you”
Nilda Fernández

If Madrid didn’t exist, perhaps many things would lose their meaning. Like, for example, our life as Argentinians in Europe.Because Madrid is the natural extension of our almost contradictory spirit—nostalgic and yet bustling; worldly and cosmopolitan—with an energy that neither Rome nor Paris can offer or make one feel in quite the same way.

My first memory of the city is lost in a distant time: a Saturday dawn, after an entire Friday night wandering through bars where people sing and dance as if there were no tomorrow, with traffic so jammed that cars moved at a snail’s pace. The taxi driver, harried by the endless line of vehicles forming behind us, dropped me off in the street without charging the fare—he had no change and couldn’t stop. That was my welcome to Madrid, a city with the strange ability to make five in the morning feel like midday.
I don’t know how many times I’ve returned. Memories blend together. I remember the first time, and I remember the last times too, dining almost every night at the Mercado de Ibiza restaurant, near Retiro Park, where an Italian waitress describes Madrid with the same passion as an Argentine.
What is it about Madrid that draws me in? It’s not just the beauty of its monuments or its geography. It’s the city’s urban soul, the life that fills its streets, the feeling that something is always happening.

There’s a route that captures the essence of the city: Puerta del Sol, Gran Vía, Plaza de Cibeles, Puerta de Alcalá, and Parque del Retiro. In just a few steps, you traverse centuries of history, iconic architecture, cultural life, bars, shows, and green corners that are part of Madrid’s heart.
Puerta del Sol, in the 15th century, marked Madrid’s eastern boundary. As the city grew, it transformed into its vibrant center. Today, it’s a meeting point beside the Kilometer 0, the statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree, the equestrian figure of Carlos III, and the Mariblanca statue.
Just a few meters away, Gran Vía unfolds with theaters, cinemas, department stores, and luxury boutiques, among buildings that have become part of Madrid’s iconic image: the Metrópolis, the Carrión with its Schweppes neon sign, the Telefónica Building, and the Real Oratorio del Caballero de Gracia. It’s the avenue that never sleeps and the perfect stage to feel you’re truly in Madrid.
The walk takes us to Plaza de Cibeles, where the goddess, atop her chariot pulled by lions, presides over a monumental space flanked by the Palacio de Cibeles, the Bank of Spain, and the Palacio de Buenavista. I love to stop here, watch the traffic whirl around the roundabout, then stroll down Gran Vía at night — an avenue that never ends and never stops.
A few steps more and you reach the Puerta de Alcalá, inaugurated in 1778 under King Carlos III. This majestic arch of granite and limestone, in the Plaza de la Independencia, was the first grand monumental gate built in Europe after the Middle Ages. By day or illuminated at night, it remains one of the city’s unmistakable icons.
Behind it opens the Parque del Retiro, 118 hectares of green space in the very heart of Madrid. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, my camera captured families, couples, and friends strolling or rowing in the boats of the Estanque Grande. The façades reflected on the water, street musicians provided the soundtrack, and the atmosphere invited you to stay, to disconnect, to breathe.
A Madrid that embraces. To walk through Puerta del Sol, Gran Vía, Plaza de Cibeles, Puerta de Alcalá, and Parque del Retiro is to immerse yourself in the most authentic Madrid.
A Madrid that welcomes and whispers secrets to the soul, like in Nilda Fernández’s song, an afternoon in Retiro, throwing stones at a lamppost, while the sun melts loves and memories with its warm light.
To walk through Puerta del Sol is to enter the city’s living heartbeat, to lose yourself on Gran Vía is to dance between lights and shadows, to pause at Plaza de Cibeles is to admire the nobility of water, and to cross beneath Puerta de Alcalá is to feel the echo of a thousand stories, a Madrid dressed in gala, proud yet vulnerable at once.
Madrid, Madrid, sometimes you make me sad, seeing you so beautiful, so elegantly dressed, as if you know that on these streets, amid laughter and sighs, some will laugh at you, but others will always love you passionately.

Pablo Munini © Milano 2025