Newcomers' Madrid: From Barley Square to Lavapiés

Plaza de la Cebada

A wide, sloping square that was Madrid's barley market from the 16th century. It later served as a site of public executions and now fronts the red-domed Mercado de la Cebada.

You are standing on a wide, sloping plaza whose name means barley. From the 16th century, farmers brought their grain, vegetables, and salted pork here to sell. The barley was sorted into lots: some for the king's cavalry, some for the parish priests of San Andrés, Santa María, and San Justo. In the early 19th century this square took on a darker role.

In 1823 General Rafael del Riego was hanged here, his only crime having tried to bring a constitution to Spain. The glass-and-iron market hall that opened in 1875 was modelled on Les Halles in Paris. It was torn down in the 1950s and replaced by the red-domed building you see on your left, the Mercado de la Cebada. It is still a working neighbourhood market: fishmongers, butchers, fruit stalls, and a few wine bars under the vaulted ceiling.

To its right, the newer granite block is the municipal sports centre, built on what was briefly the Campo de Cebada, a community-run square with picnic tables and guerrilla gardens. Turn around and look north. The narrow street mouth ahead of you is where you are headed next.

Cava Baja

A 300-metre street that traces a 12th-century moat. Once lined with inns for muleteers and merchants, it now holds more than 50 tapas bars and some of Madrid's oldest taverns.

You are walking the line of Madrid's 12th-century Christian wall. Cava means moat, and this street traces the defensive ditch that ran outside it. For centuries this was the main entry point into the city from Toledo and the south. Muleteers, merchants, and travellers arrived here and needed food, drink, and a bed.

The inns that served them became the taverns that still line this street. Look at the low doorways and thick plastered walls. They are not decoration. Some of these buildings predate modern Madrid by centuries.

At number 30, La Posada del Dragón has a glass floor that lets you see the medieval city wall beneath the dining room. The Real Pósito, Madrid's great grain silo, once stood on this street before it moved to Calle Alcalá in 1660. Today Cava Baja packs more than 50 tapas bars into 300 metres. The taverns are not performing tradition.

They are continuing it. Walk the full length of the street. When you reach the top, turn right onto Calle de San Millán.

Plaza de Cascorro

A small square crowned by a bronze statue of Eloy Gonzalo, a young soldier from the Cuban war. This is the head of El Rastro, Madrid's oldest flea market.

The bronze soldier on the plinth is Eloy Gonzalo, a young private who in 1897 walked into a rebel-held village in Cuba with a can of gasoline and set it alight, dying in the act. His heroism gave the square its name: Cascorro is the Cuban town where it happened. The statue has stood here since 1902. This plaza is the head of El Rastro, Madrid's oldest and largest flea market.

On Sunday mornings the square fills with stall holders and bargain hunters, and the noise rolls down the hill behind you. Even on a quiet weekday you can feel the gradient. The streets sloping away south and east are the market's natural channels. When you are ready, face the statue and take the street that descends directly behind it: Ribera de Curtidores.