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Contact was last modified: April 3rd, 2021 by Madrid No Frills

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🎁 Shopping for Madrid Christmas gifts? Meet "Pe

🎁 Shopping for Madrid Christmas gifts? Meet "Perri en la Puerta" 🐕🚪💕

I love this typical Madrid scene: a doggy hanging out in a no-frills bar, especially one as beautiful as this one!

My "Perri en la Puerta" print is available in:

🖼️ A4 (210 X 210 mm): €25
🖼️ A3 (297 X 297 mm): €35
🖼️ A2 (420 X 420 mm): €45

🐕 Perrie en la Puerta is printed on gloss photo paper right up to the edge, but a white rim can also be requested!

📮 Postage is global, pick-up is free, handed over by me, Leah! 🙋🏾‍♀️

📦 All materials and printing is done locally in my barrio, Lavapiés, and postage (optional tracking) is with Spain's State postal service @correos.

🌪️ Orders can be processed and ready within just three days of payment!

📨 To make an order, simply email me, Leah, at hola@madridnofrills.com with the size and print you want!

🖼️ Explore all my other prints by visiting the link in my bio @madridnofrills!

❤️ All profits made from the sale of my prints go directly into Madrid No Frills, allowing me to spend even more time researching, investigating and telling the stories that matter! If you've ever thought about showing your support for the work that I do, here's a really fun way to do it! 🥰

🌹 Don Justo Gallego, one of Spain’s greatest

🌹 Don Justo Gallego, one of Spain’s greatest and most overlooked Outsider Artists, passed away in the early hours of this morning, age 96.

Cast out of his monastery at the age of 27 after contracting tuberculosis, the young monk decided to dedicate the rest of his life to building his own cathedral. Today, it stands taller than most churches, is more colourful than a field of flowers and is a magnificent specimen of religious architecture that rose from ordinary farmland.

Justo Gallego Martínez was born in Mejorada del Campo in 1925. As a child, he witnessed the horrors of the Spanish Civil War in which countless priests were slaughtered and their churches burnt to the ground. Some years later, this experience would be instrumental in leading him to join a monastery.

In his youth, Justo devoted himself to the Trappist movement, eating a strict vegetarian diet and speaking only when absolutely necessary. After just eight years inside the monastery, however, Justo contracted tuberculosis and was forced to leave.

After he recovered, his request to re-join the monastery was refused. This led him to rebel and build his own cathedral, for he was determined – one way or another – to devote his life to Our Lady of Pilar, the saint he prayed to throughout his recovery. In 1961, he set to work on Nuestra Señora del Pilar, known locally as Catedral Don Justo.

Something unique about his cathedral is that its design has been shaped almost entirely by the materials and tools that Don Justo either found lying around or received as donations. No plans were drawn up before construction began, it is a spontaneous work of art.

During almost 60 years of construction work, Don Justo never managed to obtain a permit to build his cathedral. Despite help from family, architects and volunteers over the years, the cathedral was never certified as a sound construction and was set for demolition.

By some miracle, just a few weeks ago, his cathedral finally received permission. Don Justo lived just long enough to know that his life’s ambition and dream would, one day, be completed and, even if he will never see this happen, he rests in peace knowing it will ⛪🌹

While I flip between feeling nostalgic about and t

While I flip between feeling nostalgic about and traumatised by the cold temperatures arriving in Madrid, I want to share with you this photo of a Rastro furniture store that stayed open throughout storm Filomena 🌨️☃️

They'd even put their furniture out onto the street for the almost zero passersby, because that's what they've always done and always will do! 🪑🪞

Happy Sunday! ❄️✨

🙋🏾‍♀️ Here's me at the #25N Cibeles to

🙋🏾‍♀️ Here's me at the #25N Cibeles to Sol protest and in the march around Lavapiés for International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women yesterday ✊🏾

My sign reads "Mándame un wasap cuando llegues a casa" (text me when you get home), which is a message my girlfriends and I often say or write to each other at the end of a night out, even though I've never felt safer than in Madrid and specifically Lavapiés. Anyway, so many women approached me at the protest to comment on my sign, saying "every time" and "spot on".

My sign doesn't comment on the 1118 women and 44 kids who've been victims of fatal gender violence since records began in 2003 – many others did and I hoped they would. But my sign hopefully made hundreds of women last night think about this text message and its personal and structural significance, because the sooner we realise that we are all victims of gender violence, the sooner it will stop.

Thank you to...

💜 @feminismosmadrid
💜 @8mlavapies
💜 @8mvallekas

...for organising last night's protests around the city and giving us all a platform to stand up on ✊🏾

This morning, four @femenspain activists had exact

This morning, four @femenspain activists had exactly 10 seconds to freely protest on the street before being physically apprehended by police. The four women continued to shout “al fascismo, ni honor ni gloria” (to fascism, neither honour nor glory) all the way until being taken to behind a police van so that they were no longer in view of a small crowd gathered in front of the Royal Palace to commemorate Franco’s death, which was 46 years ago yesterday.

As the activists are being carried away, dozens of fascist men, who I earlier saw doing the Nazi salute, shout “p*tas” (wh*res/sl*ts) “tort*lleras” (d*kes), “hijas de p*ta” (daughters of wh*res), “desgraciadas” (b*tches) at them. You can hear this in the video in my stories.

I can’t understand how or why police carried away four women and not the fascists sounding off all that hate. This is evidence as clear as day that we live with violent sexism and that, somehow, it is not considered a hate crime.

Despite pro-Franco events still, somehow, being given permission by the town hall, I’m glad to say that the antifascist movement in Spain is much bigger and much more visible than the fascist movements, and traverse feminism, the LGBTQI+ community, our immigrant communities and the working class.

Last night, Madrid’s working-class barrio of Vallekas marched (swipe left to see the video) from their narrow streets to the gridded neighbourhood of Ibiza, where the percentage of right-wing voters rises. Thousands walked peacefully, all dressed in black and exuding a power and energy that they would never unlock but made clear that was there as a stern reminder to fascists: 'we are here'.

And these four Femen activists may only have had 10 seconds to protest in public this morning, but their photos and words will stay, right here on this blog, forever ✊🏾

Do you collect Spanish bar serviettes too? I know

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