Frommer's Madrid
Chapter One
The Best of Madrid
Madrid was never really a quiet, early-to-bed city, whatever people may tell
you. Outwardly grayer and more austere in Franco's time, it always held an
innate bustling joie de vivre that refused even then to be suppressed. In the '50s
and '60s people thronged the Gran Vía till the early hours at weekends and drivers
screamed round the Cibeles fountain at dawn like drag racers high on adrenaline
(there were fewer cars then, so more room to maneuver).
In today's open, democratic, ever-growing metropolis of more than five million
inhabitants, Madrid's natural ebullience has been given wider rein and the
city offers a liberal and imaginative abundance of hedonistic and cultural amenities,
mingled with the trappings of new prosperity. Blatant capital wealth reflects
in buildings like the leaning concrete-and-glass KIO towers at Plaza Castilla, the
mini-Manhattan business blocks of AZCA beside the Castellana Avenue, and in
affluent outer suburbs like Majadahonda and Las Rozas, where American-influenced
commercial centers surrounded by urbanized rows of chalets and duplexes
bristle with Burger Kings and Citibanks.
But at its heart remains the old traditio ... read full excerpt from Frommer's Madrid ebook
