Places/Spain

Madrid

Madrid

A capital of paintings, long dinners, and neighbourhoods that are not the palace.

Madrid is inland and stays up late. The painting, if you care about painting, is as good a reason to cross a continent as any church. The Prado is the one to book if you will only do one.

The city is walkable in the centre and hot in summer in a way that asks for a long lunch indoors. That is not a flaw in the plan. That is the plan.

See

• The Prado, with a limit

  Goya and Velázquez, or the Italian rooms, then out. A whole day inside is how people stop looking.

• Retiro in the afternoon

  After the museum, not instead of a plan. Shade, a lake, and proof the city is not only avenues.

• A market lunch

  A neighbourhood market rather than a food hall designed as a set. Eat one thing properly.

• A barrio at night

  Malasaña or La Latina for the evening walk. Dinner at nine-thirty is prompt, not fashionable.