A Madrid Sunday, done properly
market, vermut, then nothing at all.
There is a correct way to spend Sunday in this city and it ends with you achieving nothing. Here is the route.
Itineraryupdated 6 min read
Researched
Javier Perez Montes · CC BY-SA 4.0
Madrid does not do lazy Sundays by accident. There is an actual sequence — market, then vermut, then a long flat walk to nowhere in particular — and the people who look most at home here are the ones following it without thinking about it.
10:00 — El Rastro, but off the main run
The main drag down Ribera de Curtidores is phone cases and sunglasses. Everything worth looking at is in the side streets off it, where the dealers who actually know what they are selling set up. Go early; by noon it is a single slow-moving crowd and you will not be looking at anything.
Tamorlan · CC BY 3.0
13:00 — vermut, and the one rule about it
The rule is that you keep moving. One vermut and one thing to eat per bar, then out and onto the next door. Nobody sits in one place for three hours, and a bar with a free table at two on a Sunday usually has a reason for it.
One drink, one plate, then out. A free table at two o'clock on a Sunday is information, not luck.
15:30 — lunch in the market
La Cebada is thirty seconds away and still works as a real market, which is what keeps the bars inside it honest. Eat standing at whichever counter has people who clearly came to shop rather than to be photographed.
17:00 — and then nothing
Walk. Retiro if you want trees and a lake, Madrid Río if you want space and a river. Both are flat, both are free, and neither requires a decision. This is the part of the day the rest of it was arranged around.
Researched from published sources rather than a personal visit. Check before you go.
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