Enrique Bordes and Luis de Sobrón, creators of the map Madrid Bombardeado 1936-1939, are part of a growing movement to expose the lost stories of the Spanish Civil War. They’re tracking down our city’s hidden wounds and opening them back up in the hope that by redressing them properly, they can finally heal.
Our city gardens are something to be treasured dearly, with so many being lost over the years. Hundreds of grassy nooks and micro orchards have become victim to our ever-expanding metropolis, leaving those that remain with an almost mythical status.
With just over 21,000 Peruvian nationals resident in Madrid, there are a lot of people here longing for a taste of home. El Rinconcito Cusqueño, a small, no-frills Peruvian diner in the dainty barrio of Puerta del Ángel is the foodie plane ticket to Peru we all needed.
I’m getting used to the sound of hovering helicopters but what can I expect, living in Lavapiés? I live in a barrio so routinely pushed to the edge that, every now and then, the pressure becomes too much and its people crack.
Lined up for you, I’ve got two bars, one of which is 316 years old. Also, two no-frills eateries on two different continents, a few local architectural phenomenons spanning various eras, and a virtual ticket to some of Madrid’s nethermost barrios. Sound good? Then dive in…
A lot has happened in the last 100 years. Trees have been chopped down, and men’s role models no longer have hair down to their hips. The metro continues to be a fascinating labyrinth of lost and found stories but, it’s in Madrid’s other modes of transport that I’ve discovered a breach in the Madrid time continuum.
Vallecas might feel like the Madrid of long-ago, but for Constantino Carral Sánchez, it’s changed a lot.
Usman is a Mauritanian organic vegetable farmer with an allotment in the Jarama valley – a beautiful bit of local countryside with clay, terracotta soil, which I know well because I find it in the nooks of my freshly picked purple carrots.
What’s popular on the Spanish radio is a world away from what’s cooking beneath the surface. Funk, flamenco, Latin jazz and trap have all leapt into the limelight, but there’s a part of Madrid’s music scene that stubbornly resists going mainstream, even if it might be growing.
Meet Miss Beige, a feminist, anarchist madrileña after all our hearts. She’s a common girl living in her own beige world, and she’ll spit pipas at anyone who tells her to smile.