Frame from the film 'Open your eyes' (or Madrid in summer)
The classic love-hate relationship with the capital leans towards love in August , when the caravans to get away from here for the weekend come to nothing because everyone who had to leave has already left. In the city there are only those few million who know how to appreciate a festival, a huge space to park and the imaginary beach what the city becomes based on terraces like beach bars and swimming pools like Caribbeans.
THE FREE TABLE IN THE RESTAURANT
It looks like magic. You call that restaurant where you don't eat very well what you eat, but they all smell great and the way to the bathroom is a catwalk. They pick it up at the second ring and tell you that there is a table . Once there you meet expats on vacation like you and maybe then you realize half the fun of dining at the trendy restaurant is what it cost you to get it. Until they bring you the bill and there comes the other half: what it costs you to pay it, that hasn't changed. In any case, it's a miracle. a summer miracle that lets you hop from table to table all summer long and see what it would feel like to be famous or given the keys to the city.
SUMMER LOVE
Madrid at night is a city designed for fleeting romantic encounters, but a bit hostile to love once you make it effective. Queues at the movies and musicals, crowded bars, bucolic walks packed with dogs or many other couples. In general, love here requires commitment , needs you to put the extra romanticism between the beeps of the cars, the pollution that covers the sunsets and the cold. In summer, on the other hand, it transforms itself into the city of love and is filled with lying lawns that you had not seen, of summer cinemas in which the films always go up a couple of degrees of frivolity and of historical corners in which to stop to kiss without anyone coming after you pushing you. Summer love in Madrid lasts the same as anywhere: as long as the watermelon season. But they taste even better than anywhere else because they are filled with content, with things to do in common that ensure that their memory is not only that of a single sustained day in which we were lying on the same beach (a little further or a little more here) and tipsy in the only bar in town that didn't smell like fried food.
THE OUTDOOR CINEMA
You take a sandwich, some homemade popcorn, something to drink and a blanket. The summer cinema is the only way to demonstrate that here the summer is Castilian and the temperatures drop as in any other part of the plateau, despite the fact that at home you spend a heat that is not from the nights, it is accumulated. In the homeless cinema you stand still watching a long movie and in the middle of the second movie you are frozen and you would pay for a blanket (and of course, it turns out that they sell them). The test can be done at the Fescinal del Parque de la Bombilla, a place where they show two simultaneous films with a double program. Every once in a while you look up and see stars and the movie gets better.
THE VERBENA
Festivals are the opportunity that Madrid gives you to realize in a big way that you have not been left alone . "The first verbena that God sends / is that of San Antonio de la Florida," Lorca wrote. That is in June, so by mid-August, with La Paloma, it has already become clear that Madrid is a chotis. It's time to try the chicken, the ins and outs and if the “do you dance?” continues to work, what's next. It is also a good opportunity to see how many people are under the illusion that this is Ibiza in La Latina: backs to the air, giant glasses and spontaneous go-go dancers on the bars.
THE BEER IN THE STREET
Years ago having a beer in the streets of Madrid was declared a sin or a crime, I don't remember exactly. But with the burning asphalt and the reluctance to comply with picturesque rules melting on the sidewalk, in summer it is difficult to separate a Madrilenian from his can of Mahou . Because all of Madrid has a vocation as a public square, a forum and a succession of towns in which we all met, which overflows in summer, when no one is at home. Probably in a couple of years the stone benches will return in the doorways and in the center chairs, folding tables, tortillas, bottles of wine and even sun loungers will also be taken out into the street.
TANNED SKIN
Just as the best fish arrives in Madrid, the best tans also flow into the city from the beaches and swimming pools throughout Spain.
STORM
The typical four drops that make Madrid the sinking of the Titanic on any autumn day become a kind of manna in summer that leaves the terraces full of smiling faces. "Look, it's raining." Summer storms in Madrid are received with the same excited surprise as snowfalls. With that capacity for amazement that fills the news of news such as "it's raining", "it's hot" and "summer has arrived", as if everything were happening for the first time.
THE ROOFTOP POOL
The unicorn of Madrid's summer is the friend with a swimming pool on the roof of his block of flats. Exists , I had one, and yes, taking a bath and then looking tenderly at the entire city at your feet makes one feel a better person for a little while. As you hunt for your own unicorn, you can try the amazing terrace pools of hotels such as the Emperador and the Hotel de las Letras, both on Gran Vía and with long views of the best tiles in Madrid.
**SUNSET LIGHT (NO POLLUTION)**
Summer advances and you discover that the sunset in Madrid was not purple. With a few million cars and heaters out of circulation, the light does not reverberate so much in the pollution cloud that protects Madrid from the transparent winds of La Sierra . And it turns out that in the capital sunsets can also be yellow and red, warm and a relief. It is time for the terraces, to finally turn off the fan and discover that everything has a good color, especially the foam of the reeds.
PARK
Being able to go anywhere and knowing that there is a free space for your car It is what starts the most heartfelt declarations of love to the city in summer. One then sees the city that could be and is not. Well, it's only one month a year.