HOME
No Frills
- The Madrid No Frills Prints Collection
  
  Gracias por su visita: A no-frills photography project about the Spanish tortilla
  
  Seven no-frills decades of Estrecho’s Bar Los Pepes
  
  The art of being a Madrid muse
  
  10 Madrid No Frills bar backgrounds for your Zoom get-togethers
Spotlight
- Life under lockdown in a Greek refugee camp
  
  Celebrating the voices of Barrio La Guindalera
  
  Empty Spain: The Valley of Fornela
  
  El Alamín: The utopian ghost town on the outskirts of Madrid
  
  Forget the Alhambra: This is Granada No Frills
Living Museums
- The little pastry shop celebrating Madrid’s changing seasons
  
  Madrid’s Human Beehive
  
  The churrerías preserving Madrid’s disappearing street food culture
  
  Madrid’s golden age of commercial ceramic art
  
  Fighting for the future of El Rastro
Lost & Found
- Discover the juxtaposed remains of Madrid’s 170-year-old aqueduct
  
  The story of Madrid’s hidden (and noseless) Virgin Mary statue
  
  Map created under lockdown locates all graffiti artworks in Tetuán
  
  The secret street stickers of Madrid’s people
  
  A brief guide to Spain (written under Franco)
Let’s talk
- Selective confinement reawakens Vallekas’ ancient spirit of resistance
  
  We need to talk about racism towards Madrid’s Chinese community
  
  We need to talk about Madrid’s ‘Tourist Saviour Complex’
  
  The night Madrileños took back their city
  
  Inside a migrant safe house on ‘the coolest street in the world’
Activism
- The power and art of protest photography
  
  Selective confinement reawakens Vallekas’ ancient spirit of resistance
  
  As Lavapiés’ food banks endure, it’s time to get involved
  
  Fighting for the future of El Rastro
  
  #Regularización Ya: The Spain movement calling for an end to institutional racism
Prints
- The Madrid No Frills Prints Collection
About

HOME
No Frills
- The Madrid No Frills Prints Collection
  
  Gracias por su visita: A no-frills photography project about the Spanish tortilla
  
  Seven no-frills decades of Estrecho’s Bar Los Pepes
  
  The art of being a Madrid muse
  
  10 Madrid No Frills bar backgrounds for your Zoom get-togethers
Spotlight
- Life under lockdown in a Greek refugee camp
  
  Celebrating the voices of Barrio La Guindalera
  
  Empty Spain: The Valley of Fornela
  
  El Alamín: The utopian ghost town on the outskirts of Madrid
  
  Forget the Alhambra: This is Granada No Frills
Living Museums
- The little pastry shop celebrating Madrid’s changing seasons
  
  Madrid’s Human Beehive
  
  The churrerías preserving Madrid’s disappearing street food culture
  
  Madrid’s golden age of commercial ceramic art
  
  Fighting for the future of El Rastro
Lost & Found
- Discover the juxtaposed remains of Madrid’s 170-year-old aqueduct
  
  The story of Madrid’s hidden (and noseless) Virgin Mary statue
  
  Map created under lockdown locates all graffiti artworks in Tetuán
  
  The secret street stickers of Madrid’s people
  
  A brief guide to Spain (written under Franco)
Let’s talk
- Selective confinement reawakens Vallekas’ ancient spirit of resistance
  
  We need to talk about racism towards Madrid’s Chinese community
  
  We need to talk about Madrid’s ‘Tourist Saviour Complex’
  
  The night Madrileños took back their city
  
  Inside a migrant safe house on ‘the coolest street in the world’
Activism
- The power and art of protest photography
  
  Selective confinement reawakens Vallekas’ ancient spirit of resistance
  
  As Lavapiés’ food banks endure, it’s time to get involved
  
  Fighting for the future of El Rastro
  
  #Regularización Ya: The Spain movement calling for an end to institutional racism
Prints
- The Madrid No Frills Prints Collection
About

Register

[pms-register]

Register was last modified: July 25th, 2019 by Madrid No Frills

Share:

Follow us on Facebook

Facebook

Latest Posts

Discover the juxtaposed remains of Madrid’s 170-year-old aqueduct
26 November 2020
The Madrid No Frills Prints Collection
12 November 2020
The little pastry shop celebrating Madrid’s changing seasons
9 November 2020
The power and art of protest photography
6 November 2020
The story of Madrid’s hidden (and noseless) Virgin Mary statue
30 October 2020

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM

𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗷

Update (26N): still not open 😔 In two days' ti

Update (26N): still not open 😔

In two days' time, on the evening of Juernes, the women of Bodegas Lo Máximo will open their doors for their first bolero in over eight months! 🎸🎙️🎶

Treasure this very special moment by owning this print, which is also my most popular... this bar clearly means a lot to a lot of people ❤️ Details of print sizes, prices and postage linked in bio @madridnofrills, and your print supports local Madrid businesses! ✊🏽

All prints are printed locally in El Rastro from my favourite printers who I've been using for years 🖼️ all packaging is purchased locally in Lavapiés from my favourite little paper shop (its a real living museum) 📦 and everything is posted with Spain's state postal service Correos 📯 certfied and tracked from Madrid all around the world! 📬

And all the work of moving between all these local Madrid businesses is done on foot 👣 by me, Leah, living my dream sharing parts of the Madrid that I love with people all around the world who love her too 💕

⚠ Malasaña eviction tomorrow. A residential b

This is the smallest stall in the Rastro, and here

This is the smallest stall in the Rastro, and here's the owner setting up this morning, just as the sun was coming over the buildings.

In the past, you'd find him squeezed between two much bigger stalls with many walking past not even knowing he was there. But with the Rastro at only 50% rotating capacity now, we notice things we might once have overlooked.

After eight months, five of which saw weekly protests down this street as stall holders pushed to reopen the Rastro and resume working, IT'S BACK!

The atmosphere is electric, even the police seem to be enjoying themselves. They're here controlling the flow, which is now a one-way system. It's a bit frustrating but it also ensures that all areas are visited, giving equal footfall to all stalls. They're allowing a limited number of people to enter each area but so far, none seem to have reached full capacity.

Two small police drones are being used to monitor social distancing, which feels a bit bizarre but let's see. It will take a few weeks to adjust to the Rastro's new normal, but this is good news for Madrid!

Some say El Rastro is the northernmost neighbourhood of Africa, a 400-year-old pop-up souk that unites ancient cultures but in the most Castizo way. After an eight month pause, November 22 is a day to celebrate... it's the day Madrid's soul came back to life!! 🍺 🎉 💕

#elrastro #elrastrodemadrid #rastro #rastromadrid #vuelveelrastro

Guess who's preparing for the Rastro reopening TOM

Guess who's preparing for the Rastro reopening TOMORROW! 🐌 🍺 💕

This has been eight months coming and the whole city is preparing... it feels like Madrid's very own Christmas Eve! ✨

I'll be there all day tomorrow and I can't wait! Will you be there too? 😍

Food bank @vecinasdelavapies were born out of the

Food bank @vecinasdelavapies were born out of the Covid-19 pandemic and mobilised to feed hundreds during lockdown. Its founders took risks, both with their health and with not knowing if helping their neighbours was even legal. We still don’t know if the police simply turned a blind eye to their work, knowing that the State that pays their wages was never going to help Madrid’s most vulnerable.

Today, Vecinas de Lavapiés still serve 100 families and 200 homeless people per week. In the half a year of their existence, they’ve moved three times – each time to a unit paid for by volunteers. They’re still searching for a permanent space, perhaps even striking lucky with a kitchen, storage space and places to put fridges. But they're asking that the City Council provides this space – sounds pretty fair to me, they're doing the work of the government for free.

Last week, their case was brought to the local town hall and voted on: Should the Vecinas de Lavapiés food bank be granted municipal space? The decisions:

✅ PSOE: Yes
✅ Más Madrid: Yes
❌ Cuidadanos: No
❌ PP: No
❌ Vox: No

The result: No. Support for 100 poverty-stricken families and 200 rough sleepers in Lavapiés was voted down.

Far from being disappointing, I’m starting to wonder what the future of this city is? How can the capital of a Western European modern democracy vote down helping families who can’t feed themselves?

Be outraged because you should be! This is appalling and shameful, but Vecinas will carry on because they have to. The space they’re currently using is paid for by members of anti-austerity party Unidas Podemos, who didn’t even have a vote.

What can you do to help?

Submit a complaint to the town hall. Follow @vecinasdelavapies and share their post (also in Spanish). Donate whatever you can (food, money, time). Contact them directly in English or Spanish if you want to get involved! And share this post! ✊🏽

SUBSCRIBE FOR A FREE COPY OF MY ‘WEEKEND GUIDE FOR LOCALS’

Leave this field empty if you're human:

SUBSCRIBE TO MY MONTHLY

NO-FRILLS NEWSLETTER!

Leave this field empty if you're human: