Madrid, explained
Mercado de San Miguel is a covered market hall from 1916, built in iron and glass a few steps from Plaza Mayor. It began as a neighbourhood food market and is now something different: a single-building food hall of standing bars and stalls selling tapas, wine, vermouth and seafood by the plate, aimed largely at … Read more
A Madrid market hall (mercado) is a covered building, usually municipally owned, containing individual stalls that sell food. Some function as everyday neighbourhood markets selling meat, fish and produce to local residents. Others have been converted into food halls aimed at eating and drinking on the spot. The two types look similar but serve different … Read more
Spanish meal times in Madrid run roughly two to three hours later than in most of northern Europe: lunch typically falls between 2pm and 4pm, dinner rarely starts before 9pm, and the gap is filled by a mid-morning coffee and a late-afternoon merienda. The whole civic day — work, shops, transport, socialising — is built … Read more
About what you read here. Access Madrid is an independent guide written from published, checkable sources — museum and transport operators’ own information, official city and tourism data, and the public record. We have not visited the places we write about, and we do not publish personal recommendations or invented “local favourites”. Where we point to something notable we say who says so.
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