Why Madrid is having a moment
Yes, it has gorgeous new hotels and fancy restaurants but there’s a far more profound allure to the Spanish capital.
Dedicated followers of travel fashions will already know Madrid is having a moment. There has been a swathe of luxury hotel openings, accessorised by sophisticated new restaurants and bars, but there’s also a far more profound allure to the Spanish capital.
This is a citadel at the beating heart of Spain, its geographical centrality the reason why Philip II established his court here in 1561. As a result, Madrid has great palaces and grandiose churches, and an unsurpassed art collection at the Museo del Prado. Generations of artists and writers have sought inspiration from its superb masterpieces by Velazquez, Goya and El Greco – never more so than in the 1920s.
The hotel
A hundred years ago, Madrid was humming with the thrill of the avant garde. Artist Salvador Dali, poet Federico Garcia Lorca and filmmaker Luis Bunuel were living together as students in the Residencia de Estudiantes, now a renowned venue for concerts, debates and literary events. At the same time, the Gran Hotel Ingles, in the historic Barrio de las Letras, was a central meeting point for dramatists, dancers, novelists and artists, among them the French painter Henri Matisse. Established in 1886, the Gran Hotel Ingles was the city’s first luxury hotel. The narrow cobbled side street on which it stands has remained largely unchanged, and the hotel’s legacy is evident from the moment you enter the lobby, with its striking circular bar and library of leatherbound books in the far corner.
Literary links
When my husband and I check in, our room key comes in a cardholder bearing a portrait of English author Virginia Woolf, who stayed at the hotel with her husband, Leonard, in 1923. When writing to her sister, painter Vanessa Bell, Woolf described fervid religious processions through the streets in which icons and statues were held aloft (“Christ was showered under with confetti”), and her struggles with mental illness were eased by her sojourn at the Gran Hotel Ingles. “I am determined never to live long in England again,” she declared. “The rapture of getting into warmth and colour and good sense and general congeniality of temper is so great.”
Certainly, our time at the Gran Hotel Ingles is notable for the genuinely welcoming staff and the friendliness of the bar, where locals drop in for excellent cocktails and tapas, mingling with guests enjoying the convivial atmosphere.
The entire property was refurbished five years ago by acclaimed designer David Rockwell, who combined sleek contemporary design with art deco influences and a well-considered sense of history. I particularly like the wardrobe lined with vintage prints of the original hotel postcards.
Our white-walled, wooden-floored bedroom offers a restful retreat from the busy city – and a luxurious bathroom with a tub so deep my husband falls asleep in it. (This may have as much to do with his enthusiasm in sampling the varieties of sherry available at La Venencia, Ernest Hemingway’s favourite bar, across the street.) Just as well the days are gone when guests shared washing facilities, although at the time of its opening the hotel was lauded for its modern amenities: “a lift, bathroom on each floor, lighting, steam heating and all of the advances that make life more comfortable”.
Art in abundance
The hotel is within easy walking distance of Madrid’s leading museums, known as the Art Triangle of the Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza, and we stroll between them beneath clear blue skies. We begin with an exhibition at the Thyssen, exploring the creative relationship between Coco Chanel and Pablo Picasso, the first in a remarkable series of shows to be staged in what has been dubbed “the Year of Picasso”, marking the 50th anniversary of his death, in April 1973.
Picasso originally came to Madrid in 1897, as a 16-year-old student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and swiftly became immersed in the wonders of the Prado. He agreed to become the Prado’s director in September 1936. It was a perilous time for Madrid, which was then in the hands of the republican government, and would soon be besieged by Franco’s troops and suffer aerial bombardment by fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso’s searing response to the savagery of that conflict, in the form of his legendary painting Guernica, now hangs in the Reina Sofia museum. We visit on a Saturday afternoon, expecting to be surrounded by crowds of people. Instead, we find ourselves contemplating this monumental work while almost alone in the gallery.
Similarly, we stand before Velazquez’s fabled Las Meninas – that endlessly compelling, mysterious portrait of the Spanish court during the reign of Philip IV – as solitary onlookers in a hushed inner sanctum of the Prado. Indeed, throughout our weekend, the city feels free of the mass tourism that sometimes threatens to choke Paris and Rome.
Dining
True, we are visiting in January and peak holiday season may be less relaxed, but this is a place of hidden charms alongside its celebrated splendours. Even when we meet a friend for dinner at the stylish Ten Con Ten, a popular restaurant where we eat divine jamon iberico and croquetas, the tables around us are filled with easygoing Madrilenos rather than packs of foreign travellers.
Wandering from the hotel to the Plaza Mayor, an architectural triumph built in the 17th century and once the centre of the city’s old quarter, we come across Casa Hernanz, a delightful little shop that has been selling traditional handmade espadrilles since 1845.
Naturally, we buy a pair each, and I look forward to wearing mine when we return. For such is the evocative atmosphere of Madrid – a dark and dramatic glamour that transcends the vicissitudes of fashion – that it calls out to be revisited, and revered.
In the know
Gran Hotel Ingles is on Calle de Echegaray, halfway between Plaza Mayor and the Prado museum; rooms from about $620 a night, with breakfast.
The Prado’s Chanel-Picasso exhibition has closed but it will host a show on the Spanish artist and El Greco from June 13-September 17.
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum’s Picasso – Sacred and Profane runs from October 4 to January 14, 2024.
Justine Picardie was a guest of Gran Hotel Ingles.
THE TIMES