here’s a round up of where we found graffiti around madrid…

the centre

the very centre has little graffiti, so you need to keep your eyes peeled and it will add up… most of it is found on shop shutters, the rest is tags…

however, start to move out of the centre and things pick up… we walked around chueca and malasaña and found a real mix of stencils, tags, loose work and interesting pieces by an array of talent… again, it takes a while to dig out… check out shutters and small plazas, like the area around plaza dos de mayo…
venture further afield and the pickings get much better…

la paloma football field

this site has lots of great pieces and will keep you busy gazing for ages. it’s in a park area so you can chill out too, plus there are some bars and shops nearby…

catch metro line 7 towards pitis ande get off at valdezarza. walk the short distance along calle de san restituto to calle de artajona. it’s important you don’t end up walking the wrong way, so calle de artajona is a straight steep hill lined with shops. just walk to the top and you’ll see the walls over the road…

athletic field near metropolitano

a fab site with some really great pieces. it’s calm and a million miles from madrid centro…

catch metro line 6, which is a circular line, and get off at metropolitano. you need to walk down calle ramon menendez pidal past cezar carlos college, but there’s no road sign as far as i could see! there are 2 exits to the metro so the road is downhill from one of them and uphill a bit from the other. or you could ask… it’s downhill and you can see the stadium across the road at the bottom. at first it looks difficult to get in as it’s abandoned and fenced off. there may be a better way in than the one we found, but ours seemed pretty direct. we walked up and round to the right, following any fence or wall until we got to the centro de formacion del profeserado. we headed towards the main door then tacked left straight towards the pitch. we walked through a gateway, which may be locked at other times and found a hole in the fence near the steps. when we came back i think we circumnavigated the doorways, so look around! from the glass covered steps it’s easy to get down to the graffiti and well worth it…

paseo de la florida park

two reassons for going here – art and graffiti. you can catch some impressive goya murals in the san antonio hermitage and a variety of graf work in the park behind and along the railway track…

catch the metro line 10 towards puerta del sur and get off at principe pio. the paseo de la florida is a big road to the [outer] side of the railway station, easy enough to find… walk up it till you get to the first roundabout de san antonio, by the cafe mingo restaurant, great for cider… the hermitage is here and the park and murals are behind in the park. there’s been some buffing by the authorities, but hopefully even that will return… check out the tracks too… and the other side of the tracks…

basilica de san francisco el grande

a little oasis of colour tucked behind this huge redbrick building… not loads but some good stuff and it’s a park…

we approached it by catching metro line 5 towards casa de campo and got off at puerta de toledo… from the big roundabout there, walk up the gran via de san francisco and you’ll spot the basilica just beyond the hospital on the left… walk down the steep side to the park behind…

museo de ciencias naturales

this was a bit of a disappointment, but we were in a hurry and the site might benefit from some further investigation…

catch the metro line 10 towards fuencarral and get off at gregorio marañon… cross the busy paseo de la castellana and walk towards the museum… walk right along to the main entrance and past it to the park behind… you can see a huge wall at the back amongst the trees that has been painted along a nature theme to complement the little nature park that has been formed… there are a couple of faint efforts here and there, with a wall up and to the lefthand side showing a bit of promise, but as i said we were short of time, someone else will have to check it out…

as for those places we never got around to checking out, lavapies deserves some investigation, as does the german interchange, el intercambio aleman, la avenida de la aviacion, and some sites out in the barrio del pilar…

a word about pacifico

we caught metro line 1 towards congosto and got off at pacifico, but the underpass and walls had been overpainted by the council and remained clean when we were there… might also be worth a go some time after november 2006…

credit

much credit should go to fatal crew who seem to have graffiti covered in madrid…