Spain’s capital, Madrid, located right in the centre of Spain, is one of Europe’s highest altitude capitals. This gives it a dry climate, with baking summers and cold winters. If you are lucky to be in the city on one of its moonscape blue sky days (I’d recommend February), then apart from some smoggy parts of the city (nice if a recent rain shower has washed that away) you’ll have the perfect challenge to your lens: so much light and so much to shoot ! Madrid is anything but vain, and has tended to guard its aesthetic jewels while getting on with the business of being the capital city. The light and contrast here was what captivated the painter Velazquez, no less. With those credentials in mind, here are some of my tips for memorable photos in Madrid.

Gran Via/Calle Alcala
At the southern entrance to Madrid’s impressive Retiro Park (itself a tree-snapper’s paradise in Autumn) you’ll find Puerta de Alcala, the old city’s Eastern gate. From here, Madrid’s essential tableau: a dramatic, jumbled view of down town, regal yet quirky and gloriously asymmetrical, including the wedding-cake mayor’s office, the palatial Bank of Spain, an Army barracks with its impressive Acacias, the circular Metropoli building on the unlikely, and acute intersection of Gran Via and Calle Alcala. Gran Via, angles off (and upwards!) into the distance amid spires, statues and lots of noisy, fuming taxis. This may have been the Hemingway had when he called Madrid the capital of the world (staggering out of the nearby Café de Correos ?).

Templo de Debod Balcony
After perusing the Royal Palace, walk west along Calle Ferraz towards Parque del Oeste, Madrid’s western prospect. Here you’ll find the The Temple of Debod, a genuine Egyptian temple, gifted by Egypt to Spain for its engineering help with the Aswan Dam. Just beyond the temple, from a viewing balcony, an impressive 180º view back to the Royal Palace and La Latina to the left, Casa de Campo park and all the way up to the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains (snow capped except in summer) to the North West.

Casa de Campo, looking West to the City
Casa de Campo park was the playing field for some of Spain’s recent history. Here four columns of Franco’s troops camped, during the Civil War, preparing to smash the Spanish Republic and install a catholic dictatorship, waiting for signals from the “fifth column” of sympathisers within the city. It now plays a pacific, soothing role, as Madrid’s main lung, beloved of cyclists, joggers, meretrices and Sundayers. Take the 10-minute Metro ride from Tribunal or Plaza de España to “Lago” station. Walk down the hill, past trees inhabited by parakeets and you’ll come to the rowers’ lake. The view over the lake is one the most panoramic you’ll find anywhere: the city centre from the West including the Palace, Cathedral, the Opera House, and the tall buildings at Plaza de España and Gran Via.

Madrid’s River Project and Bridges
Who would have thought Madrid would vie with Stockholm for design ? A darling of the city-planning avant garde, Madrid’s river project has buried about 7 miles of a former mucky inner ring road (the M30 – known for taking you at speed under the stand at Atletico Madrid) in a vast tunnel and reclaimed the area as green space. Starring the rejuvenated (if still dehydrated) Manzanares River, its many scenic bridges, and an imported pine forest, nothing like this has been seen outside Guandong Province (or is likely to be for a good while). Let is never be said that for a few glorious years, before the crisis, Spain did not lead the world for bank-busting land projects! Take the underground to “Puerta del Angel” (also near the entrance to Casa de Campo) and walk down to the river.

The Cafe-Terrace at “El Corte Inglés”, Callao
Little do the bustling army of shoppers know…El Corte Ingles is not so much a department store as a civil institution in Spain. Everyone buys everything here (except DVD’s – that’s FNAC). A large percentage of the population works here. There have, in fact been moves to rename Spain “ECI”. But leave the droves of shoppers to buzz and peck at the gondola heads and bargain stalls down on Calle Preciados and take the elevator to the department store’s sixth floor cafeteria. From the cafe-terrace you’ll be rewarded with a rare view of Gran Via from rooftop level, looking South west towards Plaza de España. The roofs of the old buildings are red! You can also focus in on some of those weighty rooftop statues that they love in Madrid: chariots and horses, Angels, greek gods, they seem angry that they are so often missed by tourists who fail to look up…