Plaza de España

At the center of this grand square, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza sit in bronze, staring up at their creator. The Cervantes Monument was commissioned in 1915 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the publication of the second part of Don Quixote, and it turned out to be one of the most enduring literary tributes in the world. Cervantes sits enthroned in stone above his two most famous characters — the gaunt knight on his horse and the rotund squire on his donkey — while figures of Dulcinea and the real-life Aldonza Lorenzo stand to the sides, fiction and reality separated by a few meters of granite.

The square sits at the western terminus of Gran Via and was, for decades, Madrid's attempt at a Manhattan skyline. The Edificio Espana, completed in 1953 at 117 meters, was the tallest building in Spain when it opened. Four years later, the Torre de Madrid rose to 142 meters — the tallest concrete building in the world at the time, earning the nickname "La Jirafa" (The Giraffe) from Madrilenos who couldn't quite believe a building that tall could exist in their low-rise city.

For years, the plaza was a traffic-choked concrete island that nobody lingered in. Then in 2019, after a massive and controversial renovation, the city pedestrianized most of the square, planted hundreds of trees, and turned it into one of Madrid's most pleasant public spaces. Locals who had avoided it for decades suddenly rediscovered it.

Today the plaza works as a gateway: Gran Via's commercial buzz flows in from the east, the Templo de Debod's sunset views lie just to the north, and the Royal Palace grounds stretch to the south. Don Quixote, as always, is tilting at windmills that only he can see.