If you’d like to get a sense of the city, a walk along the Gran Vía is a superb place to start. It’s Madrid’s entertainment, shopping, and cultural nerve center, a buzzing avenue often full of life until dawn. By day it throngs with shoppers stopping by the many malls, high-street stores like H&M and Zara, and luxury boutiques. In the evenings there are couples arm-in-arm, stepping out to the cinema or a musical. And after dark the street pulses with many of Madrid’s top nightclubs.
Sights to spot as you stroll include the vast Telefónica Building, built in 1928, and an early example of a skyscraper.
