The plans for this weekend in Madrid are already looking ahead to autumn, including rain, but always eager to get out of the house to experience the city. With Christmas already in sight, cultural activities for all tastes are flourishing.
It is also a good time to visit the exhibitions that are premiered, to know and enjoy the palaces of Madrid and take advantage of the free leisure offered by the city.
Switching on the lights: Christmas officially begins.
It’s already here: the lighting of lights will take place this Thursday at various points of the city, being its usual epicenter the Puerta del Sol (the national soccer coach, Luis de la Fuente, will be in charge of the ignition). This year, the capital is dressed with more than 7100 chains, 121 cherry trees, a dozen luminous fir trees and, in total, 230 sites distributed in the 21 districts with nearly 12 million bulbs.
As novelties, the Puerta del Sol will present a new Christmas design with a tree almost 12 stories high; the great illuminated nativity scene will be located next to the Metropolis building; in addition, the children of first and second grade have designed some of the lights that Madrid will have this Christmas.
📍 Location: more than 230 locations.
🗓️ Dates: from November 28.
The Royal Collections Gallery
The Royal Collections Gallery presents two new works that will be on display for a limited time only. As part of the program ‘The Invited Work’, the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias has loaned two canvases: the portraits of the Infantas María Teresa and María Antonia Fernanda, by Van Loo in 1737 (the year in which he replaced Jean Ranc as portraitist of the royal family). You can find these two jewels at the entrance of the room of the Bourbons, next to the paintings of their parents (Isabel de Farnesio and Felipe V on horseback).
📍 Location: calle de Bailén s/n (Ópera)
🗓️ Dates: all weekend
💸 Price: starting at 14€.
The Fabrik’s Mákina Legends party
The mákina sound marked an era. And it continues to mark the most impressive nights. In the second half of the 80s, synth pop, industrial techno, dark wave and new beat were spreading from Germany to the world. In Spain, these sounds took shape in a unique style, called “machine”, which emerged in the big clubs around Valencia. This Saturday’s session at Fabrik is an ode to the DJs of that time: 2 hours of mákina sound with Pastis & Buenri, Skudero & Metralla, Javi Boss or Marian Dacal.
📍 Location: Avenida de la Industria, 82 (Humanes)
🗓️ Dates: saturday
💸 Price: from 28€.
Christmas Market at El Corte Inglés de Nuevos Ministerios
One of the most famous Christmas markets in the capital is already installed. One of its strong points (and what has made it especially well known) is the gastronomic offer of its foodtrucks, but you can also find many booths with Christmas decorations, flowers, candles and brands such as Disney, Lego, Vicens and Migueláñez.
📍 Location: Raimundo Fernández Villaverde street, 65
🗓️ Dates: until January 5th, 2025
Castiza Round
Taking the vermouth is one of the quintessential Castilian plans and, to honor it, comes the first edition of Ronda Castiza. A route of the tapa with La Latina as a backdrop where you can wander from bar to bar (up to a total of ten) tasting vermouth Bendito accompanied by a tapa for 4 € (3 € if you do without the drink). Where are you going to start?
📍Location: 10 bars in the Plaza de la Paja (La Latina)
🗓️ Dates: until December 1
Visigoth November
Hoyo de Manzanares celebrates the seventh edition of its Visigoth November, an event in which leisure, culture and gastronomy come together to present the Visigoth origins of the area in an original and fun way for all audiences. Thus, among the activities we can find from a medieval circus to artisan workshops or reinterpretations of Visigoth gastronomy.
📍 Location: Hoyo de Manzanares
🗓️ Dates: until December 1st.
Travel like in the 40’s in a historic train.
Traveling as it was done in the 40s of the last century is possible, but only aboard the Tren de Felipe II, a 20th century railway jewel that has resumed its circulation to El Escorial.
Its route crosses the Sierra de Guadarrama and, on the way, travelers can enjoy period entertainment. Upon arrival, depending on the ticket they have purchased, they will be able to enjoy visits to monuments and panoramic tours.
📍Location: departures from Príncipe Pío Train Station at 10:20 am
🗓️ Dates: until December 14
💸 Price: adults from 18€ and children from 12,60€.
Exhibitions you can see this weekend in Madrid
Gabriele Münter. The great expressionist painter
Starting this weekend, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza hosts the first retrospective in Spain of Gabriele Münter, co-founder of The Blue Rider(Der Blaue Reiter), the group of expressionist artists that marked the history of art. Intense colors, primaries, cotidaniedad, intimacy and thick lines: the exhibition shows his work in more than a hundred paintings, drawings, engravings and photographs that portray one of the most relevant figures of German expressionism in the early twentieth century.
📍Location: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Paseo del Prado, 8)
🗓️ Dates: starting November 12
Sorolla, one hundred years of modernity
The Sorolla Museum closed its doors a few weeks ago to rehabilitate the space (and enlarge it). Part of his works are now on display in the exhibition of the Sorolla Royal Collections Gallery , one hundred years of modernity.
An exhibition that not only gives us the opportunity to continue having a little piece of the life and work of the Valencian artist in Madrid, but also allows us to enjoy a “tribute to his painting, his quality, his beauty and his intact capacity of seduction”, as the press release states. Among the most striking novelties, the work Boulevard de París will be presented, a work that was thought to be lost and that will be exhibited here in an absolute way.
📍Location: Galería de las Colecciones Reales (Calle de Bailén, s/n)
🗓️ Dates: from Thursday, October 17th.
31 women. An exhibition by Peggy Guggenheim
© The estate of Dorothéa Tanning, VEGAP, Madrid, 2024
Fundación Mapfre kicks off the season with two jewels. On the one hand, 31 Women. An exhibition by Peggy Guggenheim, an exhibition that was born in 1943, in the middle of World War II. In that year, the American patron of the arts decided to give a voice to those who had never been given one: women artists. Thus was born Exhibition by 31 Women, which occupied her own New York gallery, Art of This Century. There she gave space to women creators, to artists, at a time when women were invisible.
At Mapfre we will be able to see the works of Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Kay Sage? In addition, a series of musealized pieces to understand and enter into the context of the time (photographs, works of art, publications of the time).
📍 Location: Paseo de Recoletos, 23 (Chueca)
🗓️ Dates: until January 5th
Weegee. Autopsy of the Spectacle
The iconic photographs of Arthur H. Fellig, A.K.A Weegee, changed the paradigm of journalism. The exhibition brings together some of the photographs that he published in different New York newspapers between 1935 and 1945 and that, with his peculiar style, transformed event photography into a visual spectacle. We will also find some of the photographs he captured of different Hollywood stars from a critical and satirical point of view towards stardom.
📍 Location: Paseo de Recoletos, 23 (Chueca)
🗓️ Dates: until January 5th
Seventy great masters from the Pérez Simón collection.
A selection of the most remarkable private collection of our country (consisting of more than 4000 pieces of sculpture, drawing, manuscripts…). This CentroCentro exhibition is divided into three themes with artists from different periods, from Rubens to Eduard Munch, from Canaletto to Paul Cézanne or from Van Dyck to Rothko.
📍 Location: Plaza de Cibeles, 1 (Centro)
🗓️ Dates: until January 12
Stars’ Share
Photography lovers have an appointment with the new exhibition by Gérard-Philippe Mabillard: a collection of black and white images portraying renowned personalities from the world of cinema, music, sports and gastronomy. All the figures featured in this exhibition (among them Penélope Cruz, Alba Flores and Javier Bardem) have a common denominator: a glass of wine in their hands as a symbol of union.
The collection, baptized Stars’ Share, can be visited at the Fernán Gómez Theater from Friday, October 11. The opening hours are from 10:00 to 21:00 and access is free of charge.
📍 Location: Plaza de Colón, 4 (Salamanca)
🗓️ Dates: until December 15, 2025
Saul Steinberg, artist
A complete retrospective of the work of Saul Steinberg, one of the most important illustrators of the 20th century, has come to Madrid for the first time. The Romanian artist, who considered himself “a writer who draws,” is known for the caricatures he published in The New Yorker and was admired by figures such as the architect Le Corbusier and the writer Nabokov.
📍 Location: Fundación Juan March (Calle de Castelló, 77)
🗓️ Dates: until January 12, 2025
Enjoying a concert by candlelight
Candlelight concerts have already illuminated many places in the city. Historical buildings like the Ateneo de Madrid or the Círculo de Bellas Artes, hotels like the Wellington or the Four Seasons or new additions like the Ilustre Colegio Oficial de Médicos or the Galería de las Colecciones Reales are some of its many scenarios.
This weekend, like almost all of them, these venues and many others are hosting Candlelight concerts for all tastes and ages. From tributes to classical composers to more current artists through tributes to the creepiest horror movies or series like the Bridgertons or Game of Thrones. A different show that will make your weekend shine even more.
📍Location: Various locations
💸 Price: From 11 €.
This article has been written by Isabel Nieto, Alberto del Castillo, Helena Menéndez, María F. Carballo and Elena Francés.