Living in Arapiles, Madrid

Arapiles is barrio 72 of Distrito Chamberí, bounded by Calle de Blasco de Garay to the west, Calle de Cea Bermúdez to the north, Calle de Bravo Murillo and Calle de San Bernardo to the east, and Calle de Alberto Aguilera to the south. It covers about 0.58 km2 and holds close to 25,000 residents, which makes it one of the most densely populated barrios in Madrid. It is named after the battle of Los Arapiles, fought in 1812 during the Peninsular War.

What it is

The quiet middle ground between the university barrios to the west and Malasaña to the south. Arapiles has no famous monument and no tourist trail. What it has is a working food market, a genuine concentration of theatre, and a location that puts you within twenty minutes on foot of Gran Vía, Moncloa and the Plaza de Olavide alike.

The Mercado de Vallehermoso, on Calle de Vallehermoso, is the anchor. Note the trap: the market carries the name Vallehermoso but stands in Arapiles, not in the Vallehermoso barrio, and guides written from a distance regularly get this wrong. Its central square is the Plaza del Conde del Valle de Suchil, a broad open space at the southeastern corner where Alberto Aguilera meets Carranza.

Who lives here

A three-way mix. Long-standing Chamberí families in the older blocks, a large student population spilling over from Gaztambide and the private universities that keep campuses in this part of the city, and a growing professional layer that arrived when Malasaña prices rose and pushed people one boundary north. Shared flats are common and the market for rooms is active all year, though it tightens sharply in September like the rest of the university belt.

What it's like during the day

Ordinary in a good way. The daytime rhythm is set by the market, the schools and the small shops on Calle de Magallanes, Calle de Fernández de los Ríos and Calle de Rodríguez San Pedro. There is a lot of bakery, hardware and greengrocer trade left, more than in the barrios closer to the centre. Traffic on the boundary streets is heavy but the interior is calm, and the grid is flat enough to cycle.

Green space inside the barrio is minimal. The nearest real parks are the Parque del Oeste to the west and the sports grounds around the Estadio Vallehermoso to the north, both a walk of ten to fifteen minutes.

What it's like in the evening

Culture rather than crowds. The Teatro de la Abadía, on Calle de Fernández de los Ríos, is one of the most respected drama houses in Spain. The Teatros del Canal complex sits on Cea Bermúdez at the northern boundary. The Centro Cultural Galileo adds a steady programme of concerts and exhibitions. Around the Mercado de Vallehermoso a cluster of bars and vermouth places fills up from early evening, and the Plaza del Conde del Valle de Suchil has terraces. Serious nightlife means walking south into Malasaña, which is exactly the point: you get access without living inside it.

Getting around

Three metro lines touch the barrio. Quevedo, at the northeastern corner, is on line 2; San Bernardo, on the eastern boundary, has lines 2 and 4; Canal, at the northern edge, has lines 2 and 7. Bilbao, with lines 1 and 4, is a few minutes east. Around a dozen bus routes cross the barrio, and Gran Vía is a twenty-minute walk down San Bernardo. For anyone commuting to a Complutense faculty, the walk to Moncloa is about twenty minutes and the metro is faster only in bad weather.

Eating and shopping

The Mercado de Vallehermoso has become a genuine eating destination as well as a food market, with prepared-food stalls alongside the fishmongers and butchers. Around it, Calle de Vallehermoso and Calle de Andrés Mellado carry most of the restaurant trade. Supermarkets are dense along Magallanes and Rodríguez San Pedro. Nothing here is aimed at tourists, and prices reflect that.

When NOT to pick it

If you want light, quiet boundaries or a park at the door. The density is high and inner courtyards are narrow, so a lot of the cheaper rooms face an interior patio and get very little daylight. Alberto Aguilera, San Bernardo, Bravo Murillo and Cea Bermúdez are all heavy traffic corridors, and a flat on any of them is loud from six in the morning. Rents have risen substantially as the Malasaña overflow arrived, so the old reputation of Arapiles as a cheap alternative is out of date. And if you want to be able to fall out of a bar into your own doorway, this is the wrong barrio: the nightlife is two streets outside it. It is the right choice if you want a working market, three theatres and a fifteen-minute walk into Malasaña from a flat that is still quiet at two in the morning; the wrong one if you want daylight, a park at the door or the nightlife underneath you, and for those you should look at the Universidad barrio, which is the one everyone calls Malasaña, if you want to be inside the noise, or at Vallehermoso if you want the green.