Living in Ventas, Madrid

Ventas is a barrio of Distrito de Ciudad Lineal, in the east of Madrid. It lies south of Calle de Alcalá and reaches down to the M-23, with the M-30, here the Avenida de la Paz, closing it to the west and Calle del Lago Constanza and the Avenida de Daroca to the east. At about 3.19 km2 it is one of the larger barrios inside the city. The name goes back to the ventas, the roadside inns and taverns that once stood on the old road to Aragón, today Calle de Alcalá, just past the bridge over the long-vanished Abroñigal stream.

What it is

Three separate places sharing one name, and one large misunderstanding to clear up first. The Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas is not in this barrio. It stands on the other side of the M-30, in La Guindalera, in the Salamanca district, and so does the Ventas metro station, which is only a few metres from the bullring's main gate. The bullring simply took its name from the same old inns, and passed it on to the barrio across the motorway. If you are looking at a room advertised as being in Ventas, check which side of the M-30 it is on, because they are very different propositions.

The barrio itself divides into three. Along Calle de Alcalá at the top is the part locals call El Carmen, ordinary blocks of five to ten floors from the middle of the twentieth century over a busy commercial street. In the south is La Elipa, a large residential quarter of similar blocks around the Avenida del Marqués de Corbera and the Avenida de las Trece Rosas, with its own market, library and parks. And between and east of them lies the Cementerio de la Almudena, 120 hectares, the largest cemetery in Western Europe, with roughly five million people buried in it, more than the living population of Madrid.

Who lives here

Ordinary working and middle-class Madrid. Families who arrived when the blocks were built and never left, younger renters priced out of everything inside the M-30, and a steady student presence. Rooms are among the cheapest you will find with a direct metro line into the centre, and flatshares are easy to find and quick to fill. Nobody moves here for the address; they move here for the arithmetic.

What it's like during the day

Busy along Alcalá, quiet inside. The commercial life is concentrated on Calle de Alcalá at the top and on the Avenida del Marqués de Corbera and the streets around the Plaza de Bami in La Elipa; the interior streets are residential and calm. There is more green than the district's reputation suggests: the Parque de La Elipa in the south and the Parque de Antonio Pirala are both proper parks rather than gardens, and the cemetery itself is a vast, silent, tree-filled space in the middle of it all. The M-30 on the western edge and the M-23 on the southern one are constant background noise for anyone living close to them.

What it's like in the evening

Neighbourhood, and that is all. Bars and cheap restaurants along Alcalá and around Marqués de Corbera fill with locals, football is on, and by midnight most of it is over. There is no scene here and no reason for anyone to come from elsewhere, which keeps prices down and streets calm. For a night out you take line 2 or line 5 west into the centre, which takes about a quarter of an hour.

Getting around

Three stations inside or on the edge, on two lines. La Elipa, on line 2, runs under the Avenida del Marqués de Corbera and is the one squarely inside the barrio, serving the whole southern half. Line 5 runs along Calle de Alcalá on the northern boundary, with El Carmen and Quintana at the edge. Ventas, the station nearest the bullring, is across the M-30 in Guindalera, though it is walkable from the top of the barrio. There is no Cercanías station. Buses matter more here than in the centre: line 28 links the barrio with Canillejas at one end and the Puerta de Alcalá at the other, line 38 runs between Las Rosas and Manuel Becerra, and the N5, N6 and N7 cover the night. The distance from the southern streets of La Elipa to a metro platform can be a genuine ten to fifteen minutes.

Eating and shopping

Cheap and functional. The Mercado Municipal de Bami, on the plaza of the same name in La Elipa, is the traditional market, and there are supermarkets throughout, with the densest run of shops on Calle de Alcalá. Restaurants are neighbourhood places at neighbourhood prices, with plenty of menú del día, tapas bars and a wide spread of family-run kitchens. There is nothing here aimed at visitors and nothing expensive.

When NOT to pick it

If you want to be able to walk into the centre, or if you want charm. Ventas is outside the M-30, its architecture is plain post-war housing, two motorways frame it, and the barrio has no historic core of any kind. Being large, it is also uneven: the walk to the metro from the southern edge is real, and El Carmen and La Elipa barely feel like the same place. It is the right choice if you want the lowest rent that still comes with a direct metro line and a real park; the wrong one if you want atmosphere, a short walk to the old city or a lively street, and for those you should look west across the M-30 to Guindalera and Fuente del Berro, which cost more but put you inside the ring, or north across Alcalá to Concepción and east across the Avenida de Daroca to Pueblo Nuevo, which offer the same prices with a different set of connections.