Stairways to heaven

Madrid’s Guadarrama mountains take certain natural shapes, like the Siete Picos (Seven Peaks), said to be the spine of a dragon which descended to drink from a lake of eternal life. The area is also strikingly marked by steps, platforms, and seat-like formations sculpted into the granite. One of these resembles a throne popularly known as Silla de Felipe II (King Philip II’s Chair). Legend says it was built as a lookout for the 16th-century king to oversee construction of his monumental palace below at San Lorenzo de El Escorial, but archaeologists believe these stoneworks might have been a sacrificial altar made by the Vettone, a Celtic tribe of the pre-Roman era.

The Sierra de Guadarrama National Park covers almost 34,000 hectares of mountains, forests, wetlands and pastures, including the cattle farm run by Oscar Jimenez (pictured). Oscar can cross his own land easily on horseback, but a decade-plus of national park status has also seen the development of recreational riding in the area, with several operators offering guided tours and trail rides on purebred Andalusian horses through the dramatic landscape that scrolls across the flanks of the Siete Picos (Seven Peaks) where the ridge takes the shape of a dragon turned to stone, according to local legend.

Completed in 1584, the palace and monastery complex of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is arranged into a gridiron layout that was unusual in the period. It is said that master builder Juan Bautista de Toledo intended the design to honor San Lorenzo (Saint Lawrence), the martyr who was roasted to death on a grill in the year 258. According to another architectural origin story, de Toledo drew on detailed ancient Hebrew descriptions of the Temple of Solomon, which had long since been destroyed in the Siege of Jerusalem circa 587 BC, but apparently served as his inspiration.

The mountain region surrounding Madrid is dotted with villages and religious enclaves built long before the nearby metropolis became the capital of Spain. One such landmark is the former Carthusian Monastery of Santa María de El Paular in Rascafria, believed to have been commissioned by King Juan I of Castile circa 1390. Various great architects and artists worked on the structure over later centuries, and residents such as Father Joaquim (pictured) are now custodians of an edifice renowned for its spectacular late Baroque chapel design, and a series of signature paintings by Vincenzo Carducci.

The Manzanares River flows through Madrid in a shallow channel largely tamed by a system of dams and sluice gates. Outside the city, however, the river runs more freely through much wilder terrain, where the whisper of the water is set against the songs of native birds. Neighboring Guadarrama National Park, the Upper Basin of the Manzanares Regional Park has been protected as a biosphere reserve since 1992. That regional park is laced with trails and climbing routes, while endemic species include black and griffon vultures, as well as golden eagles.

Madrid’s central thoroughfare, the Gran Via, was designed to compete with other great avenues like New York’s Broadway or Paris’s Avenue des Champs-Élysées in the early 20th century. Multiple styles and flourishes can be read in the facades of landmark buildings, and some rooftops bear bronze heroes, animals, and angels drawn from ancient myths and bible stories. In this city they say “de Madrid al cielo,” meaning Madrid is only one step from heaven–a sentiment lately manifest in the popularity of roof bars and sky lounges above the Gran Via.

Madrid’s Royal Palace, among the largest in Europe, is the official residence of the Spanish monarchy (though the current king and queen don’t live in it). The current structure has been enlarged and modified over several centuries since the site’s original medieval Moorish fort, the Real Alcázar, burned down in 1734. Sections of a much older “Arab Wall” remain beside the palace, in a location linked to the city’s great founding myth: A Christian soldier is said to have scaled that wall with only a knife, his feat of agility giving all later citizens the nickname of gatos or “cats.”

The Royal Palace of Madrid is framed by manicured classical gardens named after 18th-century architect Francesco Sabatini, and the hedge mazes and fountains of Plaza de Oriente (pictured). Overall, the Spanish capital’s abundant green space belies its location on the high and dry central Iberian plain, and the former royal garden of El Retiro is now one of Europe’s biggest and most beloved public parks. Casa de Campo, meanwhile, is a vast urban woodland that includes the hill, Cerro de Garabitas, from where the souls of Madrileños are said to ascend heavenward.

The Spanish word castizo is applied to the most traditional restaurants and bars of Madrid, which tend to be proudly old-fashioned in terms of design and gastronomy. One great castizo landmark is Casa Amadeo Los Caracoles, which opened in 1942 and still specializes in the classic Spanish fare of that period: croquettes, tripe, oxtail, and especially the snails that give the restaurant its name. Now operated by Alejandro Vaquero (pictured) the grandson of founder Amadeo Lazaro, the restaurant is made further essential to locals by opening onto a terrace on the popular Plaza de Cascorro–Madrileños truly love to eat and drink outdoors.

Ernest Hemingway wrote in Death in the Afternoon that “nobody goes to bed in Madrid until they have killed the night.” A lifelong aficionado of bullfights, Hemingway also loved the way that citizens enjoyed their lives out and about in this city, meeting friends at all hours for tapas, wine, or cocktails. The long-running weekend street market of El Rastro has always been a social occasion, too, with casual shoppers pouring into surrounding bars and cafés, like Almacén de vinos Casa Gerardo. A Sunday afternoon at the market can easily lead into a long lunch or a late dinner, and beyond into the night.