This square is located on Alcala Street and its main attraction is the Puerta de Alcala (Alcala Gate). Built for the King Carlos III by Fancesco Sabatini, the monument has a neo-classical style, with majestic details and is considered to be one of the most iconic landmarks of Madrid. Best viewed at night.

The Plaza de Cibeles is a square with a neo-classical complex of marble sculptures with fountains that has become an iconic symbol for the city of Madrid. The fountain of Cibeles is found in the part of Madrid commonly called the Paseo de Recoletos. It depicts the goddess Cibeles (Cybele), the Phrygian goddess of fertility, sitting on a chariot pulled by two lions. The fountain was built in the reign of Charles III and designed by Ventura Rodríguez between 1777 and 1782. Up until the 19th century both the fountain of Neptune and Cibeles looked directly at each other, until the city council decided to turn them round to face towards the centre of the city. The fountain of Cibeles has been adopted by the football team Real Madrid as the place to celebrate its triumphs in major competitions such as the Champions League, La Liga or Spanish Copa del Rey.

There is nothing like an afternoon’s shopping and for that, there is nothing like the Gran Via, the most popular and up-market street in Madrid. It also has a variety of interesting buildings.

The Via runs from Calle de Alcala to the Plaza de Espana and is lined with theatres, hotels and, of course shops. You will find everything you could wish for here, from leather handbags and shoes to souvenirs with prices to match.

The Via also crosses squares, such as the Plaza Callao which has a lot of cinemas, and ends at the Plaza de Espana where you will find two of Madrid’s famous sky-scrapers, the Edifico de Espana and the Torre de Madrid.

The Via is not without its own splendid tall buildings: the Edifico Metropolis, which was built in the early 20th century and has a winged statue of Victoria on its dome; the Edifico Telefonica, the 90 metre high American style building and the Edifico Grassy, built in 1917.

This building, just off Calle Alcala at the beginning of the Gran Via, has decorations on its façade that are a remarkable mixture of Medieval, Spanish Renaissance, Spanish Modernism and Classical French. At the top of the building is a rotunda of two superimposed belvederes. On the ground floor is the famous Grassy watch shop and in the basement is a marvelous Museum of Antique Clocks.

Although it is neither very large nor very important, you won’t miss the Plaza Callao, which is crossed by the Gran Via, especially if you would like to see a film in Spanish, as there are six cinemas in the square. It also boasts buildings that were once the tallest in Spain. The Palacio de la Pensa was built in 1929 and with its 14 storeys it was the tallest building in Madrid until the Telefonica Building surpassed it. The building houses a café, a concert hall and a cinema, as well as offices, private flats and the Madrid headquarters of the Socialist Party. The Carrion Building was built in 1933 by the architects Eced and Feduchi in an Art Deco style of white marble and granite. It won a second class medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1934. Its cinema is on the ground floor. In 2007 the façade was restored and all the advertising slogans were removed, apart from the one for Schweppes, which is a symbol and has appeared in films and documentaries. The Callao Cinema Building was built in 1927 by Louis Gutierrez Soto. It is a fine example of Spanish Neo-Baroque with a Viennese Art Deco interior. The terrace is used in fine weather for open-air film screenings. The first “talkie” in Spain was shown here in 1929.

While on holiday in Madrid you will surely visit the Royal Palace; if so, don’t miss a stroll through the Plaza de Oriente on the eastern (“oriental”) side of the palace. The plaza is shaped like a rectangle with one of its long sides curved outwards; it was designed by Pascual y Colomar in 1844. The plaza has a series of small, beautifully tended gardens separated by gravel walkways leading to a central stone basin fountain with the equestrian bronze statue of Philip IV as its centerpiece. The statue was cast in 1843 by Pietro Tacca, who had the idea to make the back end of the horse very heavy and the front part very light, so that the horse would balance on its hind legs without toppling over before it was fixed to its stone base. Around the plaza are rather disproportioned limestone statues. These represent the monarchs of Spain and among them are 5 Visigoth Kings and 15 Christian Kings. The statues were originally intended to stand on the palace roof, and were sculpted in a fashion to look tall if you are looking up at them. When they were finished, however, it was decided that they were too heavy for the roof, so they were arranged around the plaza.

At the end of Calle del Arenal you will find Plaza de Isabel II, a large square sided by the Palacio Real and the Teatro Real. It is a popular meeting place for the young of Madrid.

Apart from the illustrious buildings around it, the square is rather unremarkable, with its statue of Queen Isabel II in the middle of a fountain at its centre.

The queen succeeded her father King Fernando VII to the throne when she was only three years old. This in itself wasn’t so extraordinary, as child-monarchs weren’t unusual; what was extraordinary is that the king’s successor was female.

Part of the 6th century Salic Law stated that no woman could accede to a throne, but Fernando VII didn’t much like his brother Carlos, his natural successor, so he over-ruled the law and decreed that his daughter should reign after him. Obviously, he didn’t count on dying when she was only three and for eight years Isabel’s mother took the place as regent.

The queen’s life wasn’t a particularly happy one – at 11 her mother abandoned her, she was married at 16 to her homosexual double-first cousin, only five of her eleven children reached adulthood, her uncle Carlos fought with her for years over the succession of the Spanish Crown and she was disposed during the Glorious Revolution in 1868. Her son Alfonso became King Alfonso XII and Isabel was exiled to France, where she died in 1904.

Before leaving Madrid, you will obviously want to stock up on small presents for family and friends at home and there’s no better place for finding souvenir shops than the Calle de Arenal, Sand Street – so named because it was the place where huge piles of sand were stocked during the construction of the surrounding buildings.

This mostly pedestrian street runs from Plaza Puerto del Sol to Plaza Isobel II and it is full of gift and souvenir shops, cafés, restaurants, hotels, short stay flats and hostels. Perhaps for this reason it always seems full of young tourists, who find the lodgings clean, central and not too expensive.

In Spain the Tooth Fairy is the Tooth Mouse – the Little Perez Mouse who slips into children’s bedrooms at night to take the fallen tooth the child has put under his pillow and leave a small gift or coin in its place. According to the story the Perez Mouse lived at N° 8 Calle de Arenal in a sweet shop.

There is a plaque over the door of N°8 to testify to this and children all over Madrid send cards and letters to this address. The building is now a small shopping mall on the ground floor and a Perez Mouse Museum on the first floor, where you can buy Perez Mouse mugs, notebooks and other souvenirs.

Next door at N°9 is the Palacio de Graviria, which is a mixture of a cocktail bar with modern music during the day and a cabaret/dance floor/night club at night.

The Calle Mayor runs from La Cuesta de la Vega to the Puerto de Sol and during the Middle Ages it was the main street in Madrid where the shops were owned by silversmiths, coopers and fletchers who sold their wares to the rich merchants who passed through on their way to the city centre.

Today it is a fascinating place to visit, not only for its shops, cafés, restaurants and excellent street musicians, but also for the buildings, many of which are interesting for their having lodged famous and infamous people who have played a part in Spanish history.

At N° 48 you will find the Cervantes House Museum, which opened its doors in 1956, after it was established that the great writer was born here. In the museum you will find copies of his manuscripts, puppet shows that enact some of his works and children’s workshops. A book fair is held here once a year and you can buy postcards and copies of his works in the museum souvenir shop.

N° 61 is the narrowest house in Madrid, measuring a mere 5 metres across. N° 86 houses the Italian Cultural Institute and on the top floor balcony of N° 88 you will see an olive branch. It was from this balcony that the anarchist Mateo Moral threw a bomb hidden in a bouquet of flowers, at King Alfonso XIII as he passed along the street with his queen on their wedding day.

The royal couple was unhurt, but there were many innocent victims and opposite the house a monument was erected in 1906 to honor them.

The Plaza Mayor was built during the Habsburg period and is a central plaza in the city of Madrid, Spain. It is located only a few blocks away from another famous plaza, the Puerta del Sol. The Plaza Mayor is rectangular in shape, measuring 129 by 94 meters, and is surrounded by three-story residential buildings having 237 balconies facing the Plaza. It has a total of nine entranceways. The Casa de la Panadería, serving municipal and cultural functions, dominates the Plaza Mayor. The name of the plaza has changed over time. Originally it was called the "Plaza del Arrabal" but became known as the "Plaza Mayor". The Plaza Mayor has been the scene of multitudinous events: markets, bullfights, soccer games, public executions, and, during the Spanish Inquistion, "autos de fe" against supposed heretics and the executions of those condemned to death. The Plaza Mayor also has a ring of old and traditional shops and cafes under its porticoes.

Plaza de Santa Ana is a plaza located in central Madrid, Spain, nearby Puerta del Sol and Calle de Huertas, in the Barrio de las Letras. It features monuments to Spanish Golden Age writer Pedro Calderón de la Barca and the Grenadian poet Federico García Lorca and numerous restaurants, cafes and tapas bars, with its terraces covering most of the sides surfaces. Teatro Español, the oldest theater in Madrid, is located on the plaza's east side. It was built in seventeenth century and then had the name Corral de la Pacheca, and Príncipe. On the west side of the plaza, a luxury hotel (now ME Madrid Reina Victoria) was built in the early nineteenth century. The hotel achieved fame for being the favorite among the most popular bullfighters. For example, the regular guest Manolete always reserved room number 220 in superstition. The plaza is a popular meeting point in Madrid.