Living in Castellana, Madrid

Castellana is one of the six barrios of Distrito de Salamanca, bounded by Calle de María de Molina to the north, Calle del Príncipe de Vergara to the east, Calle de Don Ramón de la Cruz to the south and the Paseo de la Castellana to the west, which is where the name comes from. It covers about 0.77 km2. Note the two levels: in everyday speech Salamanca is the district, while the barrios inside it are Recoletos, Goya, Lista, Fuente del Berro, Guindalera and this one.

What it is

The upper third of the Salamanca grid, laid out from the 1860s on the plan promoted by the Marqués de Salamanca: broad straight streets, very large blocks, and buildings of five to eight floors with high ceilings and interior courtyards. It is the quieter half of the district. The famous shopping stretches of Serrano, Velázquez and Claudio Coello run through it, but this far north they have thinned out into galleries, private clinics, notaries, law firms and embassies. Diplomatic missions cluster in a handful of Madrid barrios and Castellana is one of them, with El Viso immediately north across María de Molina and Almagro across the paseo. Under the Enrique de la Mata Gorostizaga bridge, which carries Calle de Juan Bravo over the Castellana, sits the open-air sculpture museum conceived by Eusebio Sempere, seventeen abstract pieces by Spanish artists in the underpass.

Who lives here

Old money and the professions that serve it. Long-established Madrid families in very large apartments, senior executives, doctors, lawyers, diplomats and the staff of the embassies. Schools and private clinics in and around the barrio are among the most expensive in the city. Renters are a minority; shared flats exist mainly where an oversized old apartment has been divided, which means rooms are often large, well proportioned and priced at the top of the Madrid range. Turnover is low and rooms do not stay listed long.

What it's like during the day

Orderly and unhurried. The cross streets, Juan Bravo, Diego de León, Ortega y Gasset, General Oráa, Maldonado and Padilla, carry the traffic east to west; the north-south streets are calmer. The Paseo de la Castellana on the western boundary is an eight-lane office corridor rather than a place to walk, and it is worth remembering when you pick a side of the barrio. The Museo Lázaro Galdiano, the collector's mansion on Serrano with its garden, and the Fundación Juan March on Castelló, with its concerts and exhibitions, are the two cultural anchors and both are free of crowds most of the time.

What it's like in the evening

Restaurants, not bars. Dinner is the local evening: the streets around Ortega y Gasset, General Oráa and Juan Bravo have a solid run of good, expensive, unshowy places, and terraces stay busy until midnight without ever becoming nightlife. There are no clubs and no student scene. Anything louder means going south into Goya and Recoletos, or west across the Castellana into Chamberí. By one in the morning the barrio is silent.

Getting around

Fewer stations than you would expect, and all of them on the edges. Núñez de Balboa, on the southeastern side, combines lines 5 and 9 and is the one that genuinely sits in the barrio. Avenida de América, at the northeastern corner, is a four-line interchange with lines 4, 6, 7 and 9, built over a bus station that handles urban, intercity and long-distance coaches. Gregorio Marañón, with lines 7 and 10, and Rubén Darío, with line 5, serve the western side from across the Paseo de la Castellana. There is no Cercanías station: the Atocha to Chamartín tunnel runs under the barrio without stopping, and the nearest platforms are Nuevos Ministerios and Recoletos, both a short hop away. Buses along Serrano, Velázquez and the Castellana are frequent, and much of the barrio is a ten to fifteen minute walk from a station rather than five.

Eating and shopping

The Mercado de Diego de León, on the street of the same name, is the everyday food anchor, and there are supermarkets on Juan Bravo, Príncipe de Vergara and Serrano. The specialist end is very well covered: cheese shops, wine merchants, good bakeries and a high concentration of small delicatessens serving a demanding local clientele. For the big traditional market and the dense shopping run you walk south into Goya, where the Mercado de la Paz and the Calle de Goya shops are. Cheap eating is genuinely scarce inside the barrio.

When NOT to pick it

If your budget is tight, if you want atmosphere, or if you need green space. Castellana is among the most expensive addresses in Spain, it has no park at all inside it, and the walk to the Retiro is a long one. Several stretches are institutional rather than neighbourly, and the barrio empties in August. It is also further from a metro entrance than the map suggests, since the stations sit at the corners. It is the right choice if you want a large, quiet, dignified flat in the middle of the city with embassies for neighbours and can pay for it; the wrong one if you want street life, cheap rooms or a young flatshare, and for those you should look south to Goya for shops and noise, west into Chamberí at Trafalgar or Ríos Rosas for the same connections at lower rent, or east across Francisco Silvela to Guindalera, which is the affordable barrio of this same district.