Huertas and All that Jazz

Its been a while since I have updated this journal, but it has been a while since I have been in Madrid for a long period of time. I have been running up and down the country doing courses and I have not had such an opportunity to get out and about. Last night after some great falafels me and a friend of mine went to Calle Huertas to take some great cocktails and its a place where I enjoy to go out sometimes.

Huertas is close to Sol and the bottom C/ Huertas comes up from the paseo del Prado through the old part of the city. It has a very bohemian feel to the area and I love it. Its full of bars and some tapas places with different themes, calibre and people. It buzzes as much during the day as at night. You can take a beer and a tapa in one of the little squares off the street in the hot Spanish sun or you can go out for a nice quiet night or party hard there.

A couple of my favourite haunts was introduced to me by a good friend I met in Germany who is a Madrileña herself. She introduced me to a wonderful bar called "La Trocha" near the bottom part of calle Huertas. It is a small, cosy bar which specialises in the glorious Brazilian cocktail "caipirinha". For those of you who do not know what this is let me introduce you to the way this place makes this delicious cocktail (and sold at the bargain price of 5€). They take fresh lemons and limes and crush them up in a class with a wooden pestle kind of thing, squeezing all the juice out of the fruit. They then add lots of ice, some sugar and top it off with a generous dose of Cachaça (a wonderful sweet Brazilian liqour). They are strong and give you a lot - so take care with the quantities! But it is so sweet and tangy to drink you can hardly taste the strong alcohol. The bar is nice with sofas around, they have a mix of Jazz and Brazilian music playing in the background so a good place to start before heading off to the Populart Café.



Populart is a jazz bar just up the street from La Trocha. It has live music every night from 11pm and is free to enter. The music is usually top notch and is mainly Jazz and Blues of all types. For more information check the website for the program and how to find it: http://www.populart.es/. There is always something going on with exception for christmas and new year more or less. It does get really crowded so if you want a seat or a place at the bar go early. This place practically spills out the door on busy nights. For any lover of live music must check this place out as they standard of the bands are superb.

Bar Districts

One thing Madrid is famous for is its bars and nightlife. A night out for cañas y tapas is a typical Madrileña experience. But in Madrid there are so many areas to choose from and so many bars to pick! I thought it would be a fun idea to summerise the bar districts in Madrid and some places worth seeing.

Sol:

This is the very centre of Madrid, the mile 0 for Spain. But apart from being very central there are a lot of old winding side streets with tonnes of great bars for cañas y tapas. Its easy to get lost in the windy old streets behind sol, but there is plenty to choose from. A favourite street of mine is Calle de Cadiz which contains many good tapas places, which are fairly cheap and also tend to give a decent tapa with your caña/cerveza (Spanish beer, small and refreshing). A tapa is something you get in all the bars. Its basically a small snack which is given if you take wine or beer to prevent you from getting drunk. Bad bars just give crisps or olives, but the good ones give you canapès, empanadillas (little pasties with tuna and tomato inside), a little Iberian selection of cheese and ham etc.

If you want tacky and touristy but cheap - check out the "Cañas y Tapas" bar next to Plaza Mayor, it serves pretty much all your standard tapas, in different sized portions, so you can buy a lot of small dishes to try a variety or a big one to satisfy your appetite (or your group's appetite!). You have to sit/stand at the bar, but this is very Spanish style, the bar itself has a nice authentic feel to it.

La Latina

La Latina is in the old part of the city. Full of charm and character; just walk down from Plaza Mayor and you are pretty much there. Its an interesting mix of classy bars, traditional cervezarias and hippy places. La Latina is very trendy, but also very chill. Its not a place to do rowdy pubcrawls, but more like going out for a beer and chilling with friends. I like this area a lot, especially the fact its 15 minutes walk from my house!

Lavapiès

I could call this the downmarket version of La Latina, but that is not entirely true. Lavapiès has a more down to earth and ethnic feel than its trendy neighbour. Its full of very casual student type hippy bars, as well as the traditional bars as well. Its very vibrant as its full of all sorts of interesting characters and bohemians. It has a high immigrant population so its also a good place to get some ethnic food! The places in Lavapiès are cheap and nice. Good if you are a broke student.

Chueca/Tribunal/Alonso Martinez

I am going to lump all these 3 into the same catagory as they are all very close to each other and I don't know where one ends and the other begins. If you go north of the Gran Vía you will come to these neighbourhoods.

Chueca is the gay district, and is also really trendy to go to. Full of crazy clubs and bars its a great place to go and just party on down. Everyone is so liberal there its great! Asides from hardcore party clubs and swinging bars, there are also some nice chilled out elegant bars with comfy couches and chandeliers.

Right next to Chueca is Tribunal and Alonso Martinez. This too is full of a lot bars, and mainly the type catered to students. They are grungy, cheap and great fun. You can order a mini mojito (take care! Mini means a litre) and sit on a beer drum instead of on chairs with the urban decoration of graffiti adds to the ambiance. You can get lost in a drunken oblivion amongst the bars and pubs there, hang out with other grungy students/young people who are on the street drinking cheap beer out of plastic cups. If you want a messy pubcrawl where your brain feels raped afterwards - this is your area!

However saying that near Alonso Martinez there is a very nice chilled out bar called Aereia (I am not 100% sure on the spelling) where you can get great cocktails, ethnic food, slob out on a futon and listen to chilled out music. Nice place to go to unwind in the evening, and also functions as a restaurant during the day.

Bilbao

Go a bit further north from Tribunal you come to Bilbao. Not the city, but the district. This too is also a very nice area to explore tapas and some bars. Its a good place to start the night off with some beer and tapas and then venture into the nearby areas of Tribunal/Chueca.

Huertas

Just off the Paseo del Prado is calle de Huertas. This street leads up to the area near Sol/Plaza Mayor and is also a good place to go at night, particularly if you are looking for live music. The Café Populart is a good venue if you like Jazz because every night from 11pm onwards there is live music there from different artists and bands of jazz, blues etc. Its free entry, but it gets really packed some nights! Especially on weekends. If you like your cocktails I highly recommend La Trocha just a few meters down the street where they serve the best caipirinhas!