Amazing things to do in Madrid in April

One of the beautiful virtues of April is its light. The fourth month of the year disembarks with the aftertaste of the summer time change. In Madrid, an hour later in the afternoon translates into eternal afternoons to enjoy the good weather.

After a cold and rainy March, this month (hopefully) will be sunny and with a contagious discharge of gastronomic, artistic, musical, literary plans and, of course, unforgettable nights. These are the April plans to stay in Madrid.

The FRIENDS™ Experience: The One in Madrid (all month)

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The one with the dozen lasagnas, the one with the jellyfish, the one with the Armadillo party… and the last chapter of the series is “The one in Madrid”. Who would have thought that the spring of 2025 would start with an immersive exhibition of the most mythical spaces of the most iconic series of the 90s and early 00s. And this hyperbolic and spurious description makes perfect sense when you walk through the doors of the exhibition. It is impossible not to get excited when entering Monica’s apartment or playing foosball with Chandler and Joey.

In addition to the photocall moment, The FRIENDS™ Experience: The One in Madrid includes stories, secrets and anecdotes narrated by the production team itself as well as reproductions of the wardrobe… and Rachel’s famous letter to Ross (yes, 18 pages, front and back!).

📍 Location: IFEMA Madrid. Pavilion 14.1 . Avenida Partenón, 5. (Barajas)
Tickets: general admission 15€.

Madrid Metropolis. El sueño de Antonio Palacios ( from April 8th)

Madrid Metropolis. The dream of Antonio Palacios is an exhibition that explores the legacy of a visionary architect, capable of imagining a monumental and modern city without losing its essence. Through his most emblematic works-such as the Palacio de Cibeles, the Círculo de Bellas Artes and the Hospital de Maudes-the exhibition immerses us in his urban planning proposal, exploring the spaces that defined his vision: Calle de Alcalá, Puerta del Sol, Gran Vía and the Prado-Castellana axis.

📍 Location: Plaza de Cibeles, 1 (downtown)
Tickets: free.

Libros Mutantes (from April 25 to 27)

Libros Mutantes is the fair that every year gives name and surname to all those who dedicate themselves to the noble art of making books. And fanzines. And magazines. And experimental books. It is a place where the physical, the smell of paper, the artistic feats captured and printed in the physical, is honored, honored and recognized.

This year, Libros Mutantes expands and will occupy new spaces in the Casa Encendida . Among the invited countries are creators from China, Indonesia or the United States, with a special “Atlas” section dedicated to Taipei (within which talks will be given and an exhibition of graphic work on the power of the poster will be organized.

📍 Where to go? Ronda de Valencia, 2 (Lavapiés-Embajadores)
Admission: free of charge

Mutua Madrid Open (from April 21 to May 4)

One of the biggest tennis tournaments of the year, which is part of the Masters 1000, returns to the Caja Mágica. The best tennis players in the world and the young promises of the sport will face each other to win the prized trophy. Our most international representative, Carlos Alcaraz, won it in 2022 and 2023, will he repeat the feat this year?

Another issue that motivates us is to see the return of the most successful tennis player in history, Novak Djokovic, who returns to Madrid (we have not seen him here since 2022). And in the women’s field all eyes are on Sabalenka vs Swiatek (number 1 and 2 of the WTA) but what if Paula Badosa gives the bell? Whatever happens, the show is assured and there are still a few tickets on sale for us to enjoy it too.

📍 Location: Manolo Santa and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario (Caja Mágica) Stadiums. Camino de Perales, 23
Tickets : from 42€.

The world’s largest collection of Latin music comes to Madrid (from April 4)

Alejandra Fierro is the woman at the helm of Gladys Palmera, a radio station (the first dedicated to Latin music in Spain) that today continues online. And also a Foundation, which gathers the largest collection of Afro-Latin American and Caribbean music in the world(both in terms of records and documentaries). More than 100,000 references are found in this incredible collection in which not everything is vinyl.

From April 4, Madrid will be showing a little piece of this immeasurable work: Latina: Women, music and glamour in the Gladys Palmera Collection is the name of the exhibition in which 500 references will be displayed with works of art such as the photo of Mayra Vedette (which illustrates this section), a dress by Celia Cruz or one of Josephine Baker‘s banana skirts.

📍 Where? Casa de América, at Plaza de Cibeles s/n (Barrio de Salamanca)
Admission: free of charge

Open x Works (from April 10)

Matadero Madrid once again activates this cycle of site-specific exhibitions in its Nave 0. In this cycle, the cultural center invites different artists specialized in this type of art (which adapts to the space in which it is exhibited) and starts a new edition with the creator Eva Fàbregas. She will display her sculptures, characterized by being ethereal, modeled by the air, inside the ship in a sort of membranes made with synthetic fabrics, plastics and latex.

📍 Where? Plaza de Legazpi, 8 (Arganzuela)

Enlightenment (all month)

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There is nothing we like more than colored lights that envelop us, turning us for a moment into another person, or into a being that transits other worlds. This is what happens in Enlightenment, which is an immersive video mapping experience inside the church of the German-speaking Evangelical Community of Paseo de la Castellana. That once we enter here and the music starts playing, the rest doesn’t matter.

Inspired by Vivaldi’ s The Four Seasons, this plan is conceived to travel through spring, summer, autumn and winter without moving from comfortable poufs and while color, light and different graphics impact on our eyes and our memory.

📍 Location: Paseo de la Castellana, 6 (Centro)
Tickets: from 13€.

Vermouth session: concerts by Ángeles Toledano, Cariño, YAWNERS… free (from April 5)

One of the activities that we can enjoy the most in spring is to go out in the street, have a vermouth and enjoy live music in the squares of the city. This is what happens every year in the concert series Sesión Vermú, which this year comes with a tremendous line-up: Cariño, Queralt Lahoz, Ede, Ángeles Toledano, YAWNERS, Nueve Desconocidos… You can check here the complete program.

📍 Where to go? Various municipalities of Madrid

A tribute from the Filmoteca to Marisa Paredes

On December 17, Marisa Paredes, an iconic interpreter of Spanish cinema, passed away. With the arrival of spring, Cine Doré’s program is full of films starring Paredes in the cycle El dolor y el humor, a tribute to the actress organized by the Filmoteca Española. Titles such as La reina anónima ( Gonzalo Suárez, 1992), Profundo carmesí (Arturo Ripstein, 1996), Mi familia italiana ( Cristina Comencini, 2015) and La flor de mi secreto ( Pedro Almodóvar, 1995) will be screened. See the schedule here.

📍 Where? Calle de Santa Isabel, 3 (Antón Martín)

Frida Kahlo: Live Art Experience and Gastronomic Show (all month)

To describe this experience as a show or an exhibition is an understatement. Because to enter this space is to enter the Kahlo’s universe through live art and the experiential, the sensory. Although some of the spaces are of an exhibition nature (such as the photographs of her life or the handwritten letters), everything is experienced with a different artistic patina: various “hosts” will welcome and color the experience with live performances.

Added to all this is the possibility of buying a mixed ticket that includes a gastronomic experience (for Friday sessions at 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 2, 8 and 9:30 p.m.; and Sundays at 2 and 8 p.m.), a tour of five Mexican dishes with tequila and mezcal tasting inspired by Frida Kahlo’ s wedding banquet with Diego Rivera.

📍Where? Paseo del Pintor Rosales, 30 (University)
💸 Tickets: Live Art: 15€; Live Art + gastronomic experience: 60€..

The tulips of the Royal Botanic Garden

One of the most spectacular and long-awaited plans of the first one does not carry the surname “immersive” nor does it need technology or Virtual Reality glasses to be totally overwhelming and beautiful. It is, quite simply, nature carrying out its life cycle, ripping the colorful life out of the more than 17,000 tulips that populate the flowerbeds of the Royal Botanical Garden.

Still waiting to be at their maximum splendor, some of them have already bloomed and can be seen, timidly, among daffodils and lilies. Here you can find a complete guide with guided tours of the spring flowers of the Royal Botanical Garden.

📍Where to go? Plaza de Murillo, 2 (Retiro)
💸 Tickets: 4€.

Dance Day activities at Centro Danza Matadero (April 24-27)

More than twenty shows in tribute to dance will be held at the new Centro Danza Matadero center. For four days there will be workshops for families but also for professionals and performances with live music, such as those performed free of charge at Plaza Matadero as part of the ‘Festival Cuerpo Romo’. Companies such as Aracaladanza or Dani Pannullo Dancetheatre, among others, will also participate, and there will be round table discussions on the language of universal dance. You can access the complete program here.

📍 Where to go? Plaza de Legazpi, 8 (Arganzuela)

The best concerts of the month

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This April the live music calendar is on fire: Lenny Kravitz already toured Madrid and made Bardem sing and now we still have the live performances of Inhaler (yes, the band of Bono’s son from U2), the dark and elegant party of Jennifer Cardini or Nick Waterhouse. Check out our favorites here.

📍 Where to go? Various locations

Book Day at Matadero (April 23)

A tremendous literary event is coming to Matadero this April 23 to celebrate Book Day. The event is called Meet & Read, the reading party. And that’s what it’s all about: meeting, getting to know each other and reading. It is a shared reading that will take place in Plaza Matadero with two masters of ceremonies (the booktoker Patricia Fernandez or DJ Luis Miguel Cobo) who will guide attendees in reading. Plaza Matadero will be filled with hammocks and tables to read and share recommendations and conversations about reading.

In addition, the Cineteca is preparing a complete program of films related to literature organized in various thematic cycles. For example, Fassbinder and company, on the literary adaptations of the German filmmaker; Displaced adaptations, literature as a starting point, a series of films selected by filmmaker and video artist Guillermo G. Peydró that have in common the use of literature as a starting point to explore the audiovisual narrative); Historical adaptations, 50 years of Barry Lyndon and Saló or the 120 days of Sodom, about the two literary adaptations of Kubrick and Pier Paolo Pasolini; Cinema and circus, Roma behind the camera: the gypsy cinema of the 21st century; Book Day: cinema and literature in dialogue… you can consult the complete program here.

📍 Where to go? Plaza de Legazpi, 8 (Arganzuela)

Orlando (from April 25)

Virginia Woolf ‘s text returns to the stages of Madrid: the magnificent María Guerrero theater hosts the story of this young English aristocrat of the sixteenth century who lives for the pursuit of love and adventure … but with a strange condition: Orlando is about 300 years old, but only looks 36. And in these three centuries of life, he gets Queen Elizabeth I falls in love with him, he falls in love with a Russian princess, but also abandoned to the love of men and women in the eighteenth century and countless other stories. Until one day, he dawns transformed into a woman.

📍Where? Calle de Tamayo y Baus, 4 (Centro)
💸 Tickets: from 6€.

La Cuesta de Moyano celebrates 100 years (April 23 and 25)

Among the program of activities that deploys throughout the year to celebrate this first century of life, next April 23 for Book Day, the Cuesta de Moyano prepares a joint action with the Royal Botanical Garden: for the purchase of each book of the Cuesta de Moyano, will give away a ticket to visit the Royal Botanical Garden.

Another important day this month in terms of literature is April 25, the Night of Books. On this occasion, the Soy de la Cuesta Association is organizing a special edition of the Book Hunt. What does this activity consist of? It is about looking for bibliographic treasures.

📍Where? Cuesta de Claudio Moyano, 19 (Jerónimos)

La Noche de los Libros (April 25)

With nocturnality and without malice aforethought, La Noche de los Libros returns to Madrid for its twentieth edition. The nocturnal appointment with books organized by the Community of Madrid will be held on April 25. And as a kick-off and thematic axis, ‘ 20 nights in one day’, that is, the celebration of this 20th anniversary returning to the spirit of the first edition of the Night of Books, “a journey through time in which we will take stock of how we have changed and claim the return to a quiet reading”, as indicated in their social networks.

📍Where? Several locations

Casa Decor (from April 3)

The 60th edition of Casa Decor, the great exhibition of interior design, design, trends and lifestyle, moves: this year, moves to a building located in Sagasta Street, 33. It is a building built between 1899 and 1901 designed by the architect Luis de Landecho Jordán y Urríes.

Its style is neo-Gothic rationalist and the characteristic construction element is as Madrilenian as brick (in combination with stone and metal). The facade is crowned by two towers covered with slate, very Parisian style but with traditional Madrid balconies with stone balustrade alternating with railings. Inside, various designers, interior designers, artists from different disciplines, will intervene in each room, each space…

📍Where? Sagasta, 33 (Chamberí)

PhotoESPAÑA (from April 30)

Photography will once again invade Madrid with the XXVIII edition of PhotoESPAÑA which, this year, will propose photographic exhibitions around the theme “After everything”. After the social and political conflicts, after the historical and cultural ups and downs, after the moments of uncertainty…

Among the novelties of 2025, Chile will be the guest country and the Prado-Recoletos-Castellana axis will become part of the festival, as it will be present in new venues such as the National Museum of Anthropology, the National Archaeological Museum and its return to the Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza.

📍Where will it take place? Various locations

Easter Week (April 13-20)

At last, one of the most longed-for respites: the first national holidays of the year are celebrated from April 13 to 20 with Semana Santa. And although the tendency is to escape Madrid at all costs, it is also an opportunity to stay, to recognize the city, to see another point of view of that Madrid that empties and fills up in the most touristy areas.

But what a tremendous time to discover the lives of other neighborhoods, make the route of the craziest facades of the city, try the trendiest Japanese pastry shops, indulge in the vermouth bars of the moment and make those plans that we have been procrastinating endlessly.

Sleepwalking Romance ( from April 11 to 20)

The nocturnal poems of Federico García Lorca inspire this ballet show choreographed by Antonio Najarro. It is not in vain that Romance Sonámbulo alludes to one of Lorca’s poems that are part of the Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads) and whose plot starts this ballet full of romance, pain, passion and darkness.

📍Where is the venue? Calle del Príncipe, 25 (barrio de las Letras)

Candlelight Spring

This April, Candlelight comes with an invasion of flowers and novelties in its repertoire. This is the case of the special sounds of Cuba or the tributes to Ennio Morricone, Mecano or Ed Sheeran vs. Coldplay.

📍Where? Several locations
💸 Tickets: from 19€.

Visit the most beautiful restaurants in Madrid

Architects and designers work in restaurants that after decades will be studied as a projection of a contemporary feeling, as a fashionable place among the people of the time or as future nostalgia dumps. Madrid, with thousands of restaurants (at least 50 of them must be tried before you die), has a vast gastronomic offer that is at least remarkable.

But as the experience is not only to live it but also to tell it through images, there are restaurants that fall in love for its beauty and justify the visit only as a space of visual or functional delight. And here is the list.

📍 Where? Several locations

Autopía (April 26)

Madrid will celebrate next April 26 the fourth edition of AUTOPÍA, the event of the year for car and motorcycle lovers. It is an ephemeral and dynamic exhibition of more than 1,200 classic, special and avant-garde cars and 200 motorcycles, arranged by decades or types inside the Santander Forest, in Boadilla del Monte.

It is an event designed for the whole family, pet friendly since its first edition, and has 15 food trucks, 5 bars and activations for the youngest, simulators, radio control cars, dozens of raffles, live music jam sessions, drawing contest for children ….

In the lake area you can see very exclusive models of Pegaso, Hispano Suiza, Lagonda, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Mclaren, Ferrari or Porsche; and in the forest itself, hundreds of classic cars of all decades, imported Japanese cars, circuit cars, rally cars, SUVs, campers…

📍 Where? El Bosque del Santander (Boadilla del Monte)
💸 Tickets:30€ .

Banksy Museum (all month)

There is a place in Madrid where Banksy’s works coincide in the same space. A very unlikely matter, since it is ephemeral art, itinerant, captured on the walls and walls of cities halfway around the world. Banksy Museum is born in the city of Madrid, gathering 170 replicas that allow us to go through Banksy’s artistic career.

📍 Location: Paseo de la Esperanza 1 (Arganzuela)
💸 Price: Tickets from 14€.

CALLE Lavapiés 2025 (until April 20)

CALLE, the Festival of Artistic Interventions in the Public Space of Lavapiés, is back. This 12th edition will return with its usual fusion of art and daily life: life will go on in this neighborhood while dozens of artists intervene murals, shop windows and facades.

📍Where to go? Different streets (Lavapiés)

Guided tours of the Archaeological Park of the Valley of the Neanderthals (all month)

With spring comes the season of outdoor routes, to recognize the territory of Madrid, to leave the asphalt and look for clean air. The Archaeological Park of the Valley of the Neanderthals has already reopened its guided tours (for only 1 or 2€) to answer the question: what was life like thousands of years ago in Pinilla del Valle?

📍Where? Tourist Information Point of Pinilla del Valle, at Calle del Embalse, 11 (Pinilla del Valle).

Shell Market (April 26th and 27th)

The green house of Torrelodones (Avenida Rosario Manzaneque, 25) celebrates a new edition of the Mercado de las Conchas this April 26 and 27, where the work of multiple artisans, creators and designers from all fields will meet. It will be from 11.00 to 20.00h with free admission.

📍 Where? Avenida de Rosario Manzaneque, 25 (Torrelodones)

II Guitar Festival (April 22 to 27)

The Sala Verde of the Canal Theaters hosts the second edition of a festival dedicated to the six strings: from Thursday 24 to Sunday 27, true prodigies of the Spanish guitar will gather to perform flamenco melodies with cantaoras (flamenco singers) and bailaoras (flamenco dancers). In addition, among the parallel activities (to be held in the Sala Negra), round tables and conferences.

📍 Where will the event take place? Avenida de Rosario Manzaneque, 25 (Torrelodones)