Which one do you choose?
From them we are not going to see an infinite city, neither grid streets nor gentlemen with suits and briefcases, but rather a large town in which there are brick roofs, television antennas, backyards and a layer of pollution that in the mornings mixes with the bright blue. At night it is still day: the roofs are no longer visible, but the streets turn orange and the sky even more so. For a few years now, several buildings have let us get close to it almost for free or for the price of a drink on their brand-new rooftops, which will open as summer approaches and become part of our plans. Nothing else, but there is to choose from.
TO A POSITIVE HOTEL WITH A SWIMMING POOL
The hotels opened the season . “When we went abroad, to the United States or London, we saw a lot of life in the hotels. Restaurants and drinking places weren't just for customers, they were open to the public. And here it has begun to be done in recent years”, Ana and Cecilia, from the Mad Queens blog, explain to me and that last year they were in the same, in search of the best terrace. The pioneers were, in 2004, the Urban Hotel (with a rooftop pool); in 2005, the Ático de las Letras (little and collected) and the ME, which has lit up the Plaza de Santa Ana since 2006.
The pool of the Urban Hotel
“Two other places that are not well known yet and that I really like are the terrace of the Hotel Mercure Santo Domingo (chill-out atmosphere for nights out) and the swimming pool of the Emperador Hotel: you can access and swim on the Gran Vía. They even organize barbecues for groups”, adds Nacho, from 11870.com (where the best places in Madrid are always known).
**TO AN ICONIC PUBLIC BUILDING (BUT FULL OF PEOPLE) **
“I prefer the rooftop terrace of the Círculo de Bellas Artes. It was possibly the first to open the doors to the sky in Madrid to the public”, Naxos, a minube user with a hobby similar to mine (compiling lists of rooftops) tells me. It was the year 2009 when the Circle, which until then only worked for specific events, opened the door to everyone. For three seasons it hosted exhibitions - imagine going to see photographs with all the roofs of Madrid under you and nothing else - until in 2013 it opened a bar and restaurant to become a place for drinks.
In their 780 square meters today there are many white chairs and tables, speakers from which background music comes out and an area of mattresses and cushions from IKEA to drink the gin and tonic lying down. To the cup you have to add the 3 euros of entry and the more than possible queue to go up and discover that there is no room left. If you get it, take a camera and the sunset catches you, you get a gift one of the best snapshots of the sky of Madrid (also the most common).
The terrace of the Círculo de Bellas Artes
COPEO IN THE PALACE
A less crowded alternative, just to see the city, take pictures and with the possibility of a gin and tonic (yes!), is the restaurant terrace located on the sixth floor of the Cibeles Palace . Admission is free and open every day of the year (open until 2:30 Friday and Saturday and the 2 the rest). Whether it's for an aperitif (it opens at one in the afternoon), the afternoon or at night, write it down in your diary! You fancy Lunch or dinner with incredible views?
The terrace of El Palacio de Cibeles
TO THE ENGLISH COURT
I used to go to El Corte Inglés as a child to buy clothes and have a mixed sandwich in the cafeteria. There are no more sandwiches: there is now a supermarket of gourmet products surrounded by food stalls (food stalls of chefs with Michelin stars) and a small terrace that throws the Gran Vía at your feet. The last floor of the department store in its Callao version it was transformed in 2012 into Gourmet Experience and since then it has rivaled the number of photos on Instagram with those on the roof of the Circle. The best is just opposite, in the suite with a round bed behind the neon lights of the Schweppes building.
TO A MODERN OLD PLACE BAR
There are neon lights on the terrace of the house of pomegranate . They have been on for a couple of months, since the remodeling of the premises was completed and it reopened to the public. Located on Calle del Doctor Cortezo, next to Tirso de Molina and in front of the CNT building, You can get to this bar by calling a telephone , entering a portal, going up five flights of stairs and going through the garbage door if the elevator does not work. Over time, one of those sites became so secret that they earned the slogan and passed into the public domain. From the fifth floor of the building, the roof of Casa Granada looked out over the rooftops of Lavapiés and La Latina among mugs of beer, trays of salchipapas, deep-fried food, and paper tablecloths. Now he does it with a lacquered wooden floor, cloth tablecloths, fat-free food, black napkins, square plates, and white tables and chairs. At what point did the old bar become chic? The good news is that, despite the neon lights, the views are still beautiful, the terrace has more space and if you read this in winter you can also climb because it is acclimatized!
TO NEW ARRIVALS
In a similar decorative line, last year they opened another couple of rooftops that the most advantaged, the internet communities, already control. “There is a whole five-star hotel that, curiously enough, is still not very well known: **the terrace of Apartosuites Jardines de Sabatini **, where you can have tapas and drinks with views of the Royal Palace”, points out Nacho, from 11870. “And I also think that are amazing The west terrace , in Moncloa. It was inaugurated at the end of the summer of 2013 and this year, if it doesn't rain as much as the previous one, it's going to be talked about”.
Apartosuites Jardines de Sabatini, a well-kept secret
TO AN OCCUPIED BUILDING, VACANT AND RE-OCCUPIED
In 2009 a group of activists occupied the Luna Cinemas. The building had been abandoned for four years waiting for a buyer (it was rumored that the Triball real estate group, which had already acquired half a neighborhood and redesigned all the premises in its own style, wanted it to do the same – and for that reason, among other reasons, they occupied it), but his rooftop has ended up being a gym with a cocktail bar . Last summer it opened Gymage SocialFitness , an adventure in Madrid's azoteíl panorama. The building has a certain "decadent" air and is full of activist posters, so the fun is going up and running into a kind of world apart in which on the penultimate floor there are gymnasts and on the last one a roof terrace with, again, white tables , background music, mattresses and cushions. There is also artificial grass. The views are stupendous: opposite, the grayish police station; to the left, the church of San Martín and the first skyscraper that Madrid had, the Telefónica building. On the right, the huge Spain building.
In Plaza de España there was also a rooftop occupied twice. Two years ago, a group of people took over the number 3 building, abandoned to its fate, without electricity or running water and with a huge hole where there were once elevators. For three euros (“we have to support ourselves”) the squatters let you go up to the top floor . Those who found out ended up occupying it for their summer drinks and for a time the enclave was a trend in the Madrid nightlife. The bad news is that you can't go anymore, because they just demolished it. In a few years it will be a hotel. It sure opens roof.
Gymage Social Fitness, between cool and decadent
TO LAVAPIÉS, GOING TO HIS BALL
A friend says that the modern ones arrive first, then the guiris, then the chonis and then it's already spoiled. White furniture and chill-out mattresses have not yet crossed the Lavapiés border. In Mesón de Paredes, surrounded by corralas with hanging clothes and on top of what was once a church, then a market and today a remote University (Madrid gives for these things), **is the eternal and loved by all Gaudeamaus Café **. And nearby, among the junkies at the Embajadores roundabout and the travelers at the Atocha roundabout, lives The lit house . Around it, the tourists and eternal queues to get in are already eaten by the Reina Sofía, so the House remains quiet and makes us very happy with the concerts and events that it regularly stages. Check the schedule.
Lavapiés, at your ball
BONUS TRACK: A VIEWPOINT TO SEE MADRID FROM AWAY AND THE STARS FROM CLOSE
Neither buildings with roofs nor lampposts arrive here, with several advantages. The first is that we see the big town from afar and in the place of the roofs a blurred skyline appears, with a television tower called Lollipop, the two Kio towers falling on themselves and the four towers to the side casting their shadow. The second is that the sky stops being orange, because light pollution stays in the center , and suddenly stars appear. From outside Madrid, the key point is the Paracuellos del Jarama viewpoint, behind the airport; from inside, the viewpoint of the Dehesa de la Villa, a small forest in the middle of Ciudad Universitaria with views of the mountains. If you are from Madrid, you know this last one or you should know: a trip - a journey by metro - It is worth going to Vallecas through the Cerro del Tío Pío Park or the Seven Tits Park. , with the best impression of blue, orange, the intermediate gray layer and the mountains in the background of Madrid – and there is no discussion about this. It also has a beach bar without a chill-out zone in which the background music is Los 40 and where the tables, at the moment, are not white.
The 'Tetas de Vallecas' park, an exceptional viewpoint