Welcoming tour of Madrid

The meeting point for our tuktuk tour in Madrid is in front of the Almudena Cathedral, a stunning and iconic landmark located on Calle Mayor. This grand cathedral, with its impressive architecture and rich history, offers a picturesque and easily recognizable spot to begin our journey through the heart of Madrid.

The Puerta del Sol (Spanish for “Gate of the Sun”) is a Madrid public square, one of the best known and busiest places in the city. This is the centre (Km 0) of the radial network of Spanish roads. The square also contains the famous clock whose bells mark the traditional eating of the Twelve Grapes and the beginning of a new year. The New Year’s celebration has been broadcast live on national television since 31 December 1962.

Botín Restaurant, which was founded in 1725, is the oldest in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records and one of the touchstones of Madrid’s traditional cuisine. Over the years it has won numerous awards and recognitions.

Urban legends say that this part of the city is where Arabs used to hide and then escape from Catholics when they took over Madrid centuries ago. That is one of the reasons, they say, it used to be filled with taverns.

Some of that tradition remains intact until today because you will find bars, tavern-like restaurants but traditional restaurants as well, hostels, pension houses, flamenco bars, coffee places, a cinema lounge and one pharmacy.

The Royal Basilica of San Francisco el Grande is a Roman Catholic church in central Madrid, Spain, located in the Barrio (neighborhood) of La Latina. The main façade faces the Plaza of San Francisco, at the intersection of Bailén, the Gran Vía de san Francisco, and the Carrera de san Francisco. It forms part of the convent of Jesús y María of the Franciscan order. The convent was founded in the 13th century at the site of a chapel.

The Puerta de Toledo is located at Glorieta de la Puerta de Toledo in the southwest of Madrid. This free-standing gate is 19 metres high and is comprised of three archways. The central arch is the tallest. It has a rounded semicircular arch and was the main gateway on the road towards the city of Toledo in past centuries. It is flanked by two smaller square lintelled gateways that have ornamental columns on either side.

Atocha station is one of Spain’s busiest travel hubs, serving 90 million passengers every year. That volume is split into roughly 60 million passengers on local Cercania services, 11 million in mid-haul and long-haul trains and 19 million passengers on the Metro system – all in one building!

Located in the heart of Madrid, its origins date from the reign of Philip IV, when the Buen Retiro Palace was built by the Count-Duke of Olivares. The Astronomical Observatory and the Buen Retiro Royal Porcelain Factory were added during the reign of Charles III. During the reign of Ferdinand VII, the pier on the pond and the Casa de Fieras zoo was built. Among the most prominent spots, the park includes the great pond with the monument to Alfonso XII, the Casa de Velázquez and the Crystal Palace, the Rosaleda rose garden and the Parterre, boasting one of the oldest trees in Madrid, a Taxodium mucronatum. In 1935, it was declared a Garden of Historic-Artistic value.

Erected in 1778 by Italian architect Francesco Sabatini, this triumphal gate was once the main entrance to the city. It was commissioned by King Charles III – over time nicknamed the Best Mayor of Madrid -, who was unimpressed by the gate that welcomed him when he first arrived in 1759. It is situated next to El Retiro Park in the centre of Plaza de la Independencia, a junction for three of the city’s most well-known streets: Calle de Alcalá, the city’s longest road, Calle de Alfonso XII, which leads to Atocha train station, and Calle de Serrano, Madrid’s most glamorous thoroughfare.

The bullring of Las Ventas is considered by professionals, fans and critics the most important Bullring in the world, the Cathedral of Bullfighting. Awesome from the outside, but when you go inside it’s confirmed that it is startling, magnificent, royal, monumental…a number of adjectives that fill your head when you put a foot in it. It is a temple that excites and takes your breath away.

The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is a football stadium in Madrid, Spain. With a current seating capacity of 81,044, it has been the home stadium of Real Madrid since its completion in 1947.
The Santiago Bernabéu is one of the world’s most famous football venues. It has hosted the final of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League on four occasions: in 1957, 1969, 1980 and 2010[4] and hosted the second leg of the 2018 Copa Libertadores Final.The final matches for the 1964 European Nations’ Cup and the 1982 FIFA World Cup, were also held at the Bernabéu, making it the first stadium in Europe to host both a UEFA European Championship, a FIFA World Cup final and a Copa Libertadores final.

n the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, the present-day Paseo de la Castellana ran north to south across Madrid. Starting at Plaza de Colón in the south, the first section of this thoroughfare has kept a few noble mansions that were once the typical constructions of the area, now housing embassies, ministries and international cultural centres. There’s the Museum of Public Art, former ‘Open-Air Sculpture Museum’, which contains works by Joan Miró, Pablo Serrano and Eduardo Chillida, among other outstanding artists.

At over a hundred years old, Gran Vía, in the Sol / Gran Vía area, is one of the city’s main arteries and one of its most iconic avenues. Its construction, between 1910 and 1931, marked the beginning of the modernisation of the city, with the appearance of the country’s first skyscrapers and the adoption of modern architectural trends originating in the United States.

The Plaza Callao, famed as much for its role as the heart of cinematic and theatrical Madrid as it is for its eternal bustle and art deco style. Architecture, cinema buffs, and interested visitors will all find much to discover here. Beyond a wide variety of plays and movies, the square itself looks like the embodiment of an 1920s architect’s imagined “city of the future”. It’s a place for gawking as much as exploring.

This large Plaza is located in the city centre, at the intersection of Gran Vía and Princesa streets. Here you will find the Cervantes Monument, one of the most popular tourist spots. The Monument was made by Rafael Martínez Zapatero and Lorenzo Cullaut Valera and was inaugurated in 1915.

This is an Egyptian temple dating back to the 2nd century BC, transported to Madrid’s Cuartel de la Montaña Park. The temple was donated to Spain by the Egyptian government to save it from floods following the construction of the great Aswan Dam.

Home to the Kings of Spain from Charles III to Alfonso XIII, Madrid’s Royal Palace takes us on a journey through the history of Spain. Though it is no longer the royal family’s home, it continues to be their official residence.

Long before Madrid became the capital of Spain, Emir Mohamed I chose Magerit (the city’s Arabic name) as the site for a fortress to protect Toledo from the advancing Christians. The building was eventually used by the Kings of Castille until finally becoming what would be known as the Antiguo Alcázar (Old Fortress) in the 14th century. Charles I and his son Philip II turned the building into a permanent residence for the Spanish royal family. However, in 1734 a fire burnt the Palace of Los Austrias to the ground, and Philip V ordered the construction of the palace that stands today.

The Plaza de Oriente is a pedestrianized square bordering Madrid’s Royal Palace. The square was laid out in the mid-nineteenth century and is adorned with small gardens and many statues.

Ópera is a station on Line 2, Line 5 and Ramal of the Madrid Metro. It is located in fare Zone A, in the Plaza de Isabel II, in the central district of Madrid. The station provides access to an area with tourist landmarks such as Teatro Real, Plaza de Oriente and the Royal Palace. Its name comes from nearby Madrid opera house, the Teatro Real.

Madrid’s Cathedral, the Catedral de la Almudena, took more than one hundred years to complete. The cathedral looks much older than it actually is: it was consecrated as recently as in 1993.
Soon after King Philips II made Madrid the capital of Spain in 1561, he wanted a cathedral for his new capital. Partly due to political turbulence and strong opposition by the powerful archdiocese of the then larger city Toledo, the construction was constantly postponed.

The street Calle Mayor in Madrid hides a treasure from the Spanish Golden Age, whose existence is not commonly known. It is the ¨ narrow building¨, the house where lived the famous Spanish dramaturge Pedro Calderón de la Barca.