Free audio walk in Madrid
The Icons of Madrid
- 83 min
- 3.5 km
- 13 stops
- Free
Starts at Puerta del Sol
About this walk
A loop through Madrid's most famous spots, from the square where power put itself on display to the boulevard that cost fourteen streets their existence.
The stops
Walk them in order; each story plays when you reach its pin.
- 1Stop 1
Welcome to Madrid
The opening to a walk past the icons of Madrid, and to a city that became a capital by decree.
- 2Stop 2
The bear, the strawberry tree and kilometre zero
A quarrel over a forest, the stone where every Spanish road begins its count, and the clock that brings the whole country to a standstill on New Year's Eve.
Read the story - 3Stop 3
Plaza Mayor
The square where power put itself on display before the city, with autos de fe, bullfights and an equestrian statue full of sparrows.
Read the story - 4Stop 4
Arco de Cuchilleros
The staircase that gives away how much higher the Plaza Mayor sits, and the oldest restaurant in the world tucked beneath it.
Read the story - 5Stop 5
Mercado de San Miguel
Madrid's last iron market hall, built on the site of the church where the poet Lope de Vega was baptised.
Read the story - 6Stop 6
Plaza de la Villa
Three centuries of government around a small square, home to the oldest civic building in the city.
Read the story - 7Stop 7
A Bomb in a Bouquet
The 1906 attack on the wedding procession of Alfonso XIII, with a bomb hidden inside a bouquet of flowers.
Read the story - 8Stop 8
Catedral de la Almudena
A cathedral that began as a tomb for an eighteen-year-old queen and took a hundred and ten years to finish.
Read the story - 9Stop 9
Palacio Real
How a fire on Christmas night in 1734 gave Western Europe its largest royal palace.
Read the story - 10Stop 10
Plaza de Oriente
A rearing bronze horse that needed some maths to stay up, and a row of kings who never made it onto the roof.
Read the story - 11Stop 11
Teatro Real
An opera house built over an old stream, which stayed shut for more than forty years after work on the metro began.
Read the story - 12Stop 12
San Ginés
The church where Quevedo was baptised and Lope de Vega married, with a chocolate house down the alley beside it.
Read the story - 13Stop 13
Gran Via
The boulevard that cost fourteen streets their existence, home to Spain's very first skyscraper.
Read the story
Ready when you are
Walk The Icons of Madrid with ROODS.
13 stops through Madrid, about 83 minutes. Open ROODS in your browser, walk to the first pin and the story plays.
- Stories on a map, with narrated audio
- Walk at your own pace, stop where you like
- Runs in your browser. An app is optional.
