What to do this weekend in Madrid: from the retro T-shirt exhibition right in the heart of Puerta del Sol to the spring workshops at La Casa Encendida

A piece of Pandora is about to take off from Madrid. Avatar: The Experience bids farewell on April 19 at Espacio Delicias: an interactive journey that lets you delve into the fauna, flora, and balance of the moon where the Na’vi live, with installations that activate at every step. Designed for families (with free admission for children under 3 and reduced rates for groups), it’s a visit full of sensory experiences, animatronics, and interactive stations.

FLOW transforms the Friedenskirche into a moving landscape where light, architecture, and melody intertwine. Based on Bedřich Smetana’s The Moldau, the experience traces the course of a river through projections that envelop the space and transform it into something almost intangible, somewhere between the poetic and the digital. It closes this Sunday, so these are the last few days to see it in a setting like this, where the building itself ceases to be a backdrop and becomes part of the show. Last tickets here.

The exhibition *The Tempest. The Garden of Forking Paths*, by artist Avelino Sala, unfolds as a journey through symbols and tensions where books, words, and maps become living matter to speak of the present. Between the poetic and the political, the works invite us to pause and consider what is often left out of the spotlight: the cracks in power, collective memory, and the narratives that attempt to rewrite themselves from the margins.

It can be visited from April 16 to September 20, 2026, on the 3rd floor (closed during the month of May for maintenance), Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Admission is free, and guided tours are available on specific dates, including meet-and-greets with the artist and the curator.

Wild, untamed, and spontaneous, La Casa Encendida takes center stage with an eye on the nature that grows without permission amid the asphalt. From April 10 to 25, this festival explores urban flora—which often goes unnoticed—through workshops, outings, film screenings, and initiatives that blend science and art to rethink the so-called “gardens of the future.”

Admission between €0 and €5, with activities ranging from learning to identify edible plants to performances and outdoor events.

The Reina Sofía is hosting the first edition of READ Madrid for two days, a festival of books and ideas where voices such as Luciana Cadahia, Pedro G. Romero, Luz Pichel, Mario Obrero, Pastora Filigrana, Louisa Yousfi, and Olga Rodríguez will reflect on issues of our time: from popular folklore as political infrastructure to the tensions between language, memory, and class, or collective mourning.

Among the activities, in addition to roundtable discussions, there will also be performances, a theater workshop for children, and screenings. Some of these require prior registration. At the same time, Impact Hub Madrid will host an independent book fair featuring publishers from Spain and Latin America such as Caja Negra, Siglo XXI, Traficantes de Sueños, Pepitas de Calabaza, Txalaparta, and Verso Libro.

This weekend only, Paracuellos del Jarama will travel back in time to its medieval origins linked to the Military Order of Santiago, which was present in the city for over 300 years.

The center will be in Plaza de la Constitución, from where more than 90 stalls will extend , offering crafts, food, and traditional products. Of course, there will also be music, historical reenactments, entertainment, and children’s workshops.

This weekend marks the start of the 61st edition of Casa Decor. For this occasion, the historic Casa-Palacio del Marqués de los Vélez—a building from 1892 that preserves its monumental staircase and original stained-glass windows from the Casa Maumejean—has been transformed. This year, 240 companies and professionals have designed 47 spaces that preview this year’s interior design trends , highlighting the use of exposed building materials (PVC, mortar), walls with rough textures, and a color palette of volcanic and mineral tones.

The tour allows you to explore everything from a Technogym training loft to a luxurious Italian-inspired suite, culminating in the palace’s former chapel, converted into a restaurant by the Triciclo Group and Iris Ceramica Group.

The pulse of soccer is also felt off the field at LEGENDS: The Home of Football, a museum just a stone’s throw from Puerta del Sol that brings together more than 600 original artifacts to trace the history of the sport.

On Carrera de San Jerónimo, the space combines artifacts with immersive experiences that recreate iconic moments like the “goal of the century,” offering a journey that goes beyond the display cases and puts everything surrounding modern soccer into context. Tickets here.

To mark the first LaLiga Retro Day, LEGENDS: The Home of Football is hosting a temporary exhibition where you can see up close all the jerseys reinterpreted by the participating clubs. A journey through kits that look to the past (some inspired by the 1970s) and which will be on display until May 5, adding another layer of nostalgia to the museum.

One of the most anticipated free music series of the spring is back: Sesión Vermú is holding a new edition with 83 concerts spread across 24 municipalities in the region, featuring the freshest acts on the national music scene. Among the artists and bands you’ll be able to hear this year are Triángulo de Amor Bizarro, Carmen Lancho, Repion, La Paloma, VVV [Trippin’you], Begut, Bum Motion Club, joseluis, La Plata, Las Petunias, and Toldos Verdes.

It’s already spring in Madrid. The peaceful and colorful plan for this weekend in Madrid takes you to the Botanical Garden (Plaza de Murillo, 2), where every spring thousands of tulips bloom (23,000 bulbs were planted) along with other bulbs such as daffodils, hyacinths, and narcissus. The floral display lasts only a few weeks, so it’s the perfect time to stroll among the colorful flower beds during the first days of spring.

Right on the A-1, just a few kilometers from downtown, the Santo Domingo neighborhood in Algete is once again hosting a new edition of the Garden Market, the flea market set up in the shopping center that shares the same name as the neighborhood.

On April 18, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., this open-air shopping center will transform into a small, temporary village of stalls, fabrics, and colors. Along its corridors and plazas, you’ll find fashion brands, children’s clothing, jewelry, crafts, candles, homemade sweets, and home decor items that eschew standard products in favor of the unique.

Fenómeno is the new spot in Recoletos that puts music at the heart of the experience: a hi-fi bar with a custom-designed high-fidelity sound system, vinyl sessions, and a carefully curated musical selection inspired by Japanese listening culture.

Added to this is a signature cocktail bar with its own laboratory and a menu designed for sharing, in a warm and sophisticated space where you can both listen intently and let the conversation flow.

This weekend is all about cinematic revenge: Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair arrives at Cine Yelmo with the complete cut (Quentin Tarantino’s “biblically accurate”). What does that mean? Nearly four hours of katana, hit lists, and death stares (that is , VOL I and VOL II back-to-back with previously unreleased footage). Uma Thurman is The Bride once again, so it’s time to sit back, order some popcorn, and accept that in Tarantino’s cinema, there are no half-measures.

A sweet feast that speaks of excess and decadence. Rosalía Banet presents this installation at Infinito Delicias, which originated during her residency in Rome and has now been adapted into a tiered display with a strong theatrical component. Free admission.

Levitt roamed humble neighborhoods and photographed everyday, yet deeply human, scenes. Children playing, glances, subtle gestures.

The exhibition brings together some 200 images and offers a journey through his entire career, with that social focus on taking a close look at what is often left out of the big headlines. Now, this collection, marked by social commitment, arrives at the MAPFRE Foundation this month and will be on view until May 17.

The best of the golden age of Japanese printmaking comes to this RABASF exhibition, which brings together a curated selection of over 70 works from the Pasamar-Onila Collection. The exhibition focuses on prints from the bijin-ga genre—featuring women as protagonists, whether in the privacy of the home, traveling, or engaged in everyday activities—and shunga, in which eroticism takes center stage.

The river metaphor speaks for itself. The Museo de las Falúas Reales has done as the Guadiana River does: it disappeared for nine months and is now reopening. On the banks of the Tagus River lies one of Madrid’s lesser-known art galleries.

This is a museum located inside the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, where during your visit you can see vessels such as a golden gondola from 1683 or a falúa that belonged to Alfonso XII.

On the 5th floor of CentroCentro,‘Wunderkammer. Ana Juan’ brings together the latest works by the Valencian illustrator in an exhibition designed specifically for this space, which further establishes its reputation as a leading venue for contemporary drawing.

The exhibition is presented as a grand cabinet of curiosities: imaginary figures, creatures, and scenes that interconnect and gradually reveal more and more stories. Drawing is the starting point, but there is also exploration of other mediums such as sculpture and animation.

Candlelight’s candlelit concerts have already illuminated countless venues across the city. Historic buildings such as the Ateneo de Madrid or the Círculo de Bellas Artes, hotels like the Wellington or the Four Seasons, and new additions such as the Ilustre Colegio Oficial de Médicos or the Galería de las Colecciones Reales are just some of its many venues.

This weekend, like almost every other, these venues and many others are hosting Candlelight concerts for all tastes and ages. From tributes to classical composers to more contemporary artists, including tributes to the most spine-chilling horror movies or series like Bridgerton or Game of Thrones. A unique show that will make your weekend shine even brighter.

A play that imagines a dinner between Clara Campoamor and Victoria Kent to reflect, from two different perspectives, on women’s suffrage and the role of women in Spain’s recent history.

The script, written by playwright Olga Mínguez Pastor, is adapted and directed by Carmen Nieves, who crafts a piece centered on dialogue and historical memory to bring the life stories of Clara Campoamor and Victoria Kent closer to the audience.

The Madrid History Museum is hosting a new exhibition of hyperrealist painting by artist José Miguel Palacio. In it, nearly 70 canvases, sculptures, and drawings depict life in the capital in detail.

Asphalt Nature. Hyperrealistic Madrid uses photography asa starting point to infuse it with paint and depth, conveying to the viewer all the excitement and bustle of Madrid’s streets. Admission is free, and the exhibition runs through May 24, 2026.

The iconic Retiro building is taking advantage of its restoration process to show off a new look thanks to artist Andrea Canepa. The installation, inspired by pre-Columbian culture, wraps the Retiro’s Crystal Palace in 1,000 square meters of printed fabric that creates a circular visual narrative. This artistic intervention transforms the construction scaffolding into a gigantic urban “bundle” that will remain visible throughout 2026. It is an immersive experience that invites citizens to walk around the monument to discover the piece’s chromatic display.

Oliver Laxe brings an installation to the Reina Sofía Museum born from the universe of Sirāt, an experience felt more with the body than with the mind: first,a dimly lit room with a pyramid of speakers that envelops the audience in a constant vibration; then, three projections revealing desert landscapes, architecture, and dancing figures, hovering between the sacred and the earthly. A piece of expanded cinema where image and sound function as a ritual, without a closed narrative, seeking a sensory and contemplative experience.