Calle Gran Via and Plaza de Cibeles - Madrid

Calle Gran Via

is Madrid’s magnificent shopping street is. The broad boulevard cuts a lane from the Plaza de Espana in the northwest of Madrid up to the Plaza de Cibeles in the east of the city. Prominent and the highest building is the Edificio Telefónica, about halfway.

The street is lined by hotels, shops, cinemas and theaters. The partly monumental houses with their beautiful facades radiate wealth and also architectural imagination.

Particularly the splendid statues on many roofs of the buildings are remarkable, such as the Victoria installed on the Edificio Metropolis in 1972.

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The traffic usually streams continually through this street, but suddenly everything was different. No cars and the Madrilenians quickly discovered the street as a leisure area for cycling, photography or just for walking.

We quickly recognized the reason. The police cordoned off the street and in the distance we could see a demonstration. With loud slogans the participants moved along the street.

A Spanish woman tried to explain us the reason for the demo, but due to our lack of language skills, we could only understand that the demonstration was directed against an auction house.

Plaza de Cibeles

Thanks to the demo, we were lucky to experience the Plaza de Cibeles almost without traffic which granted us good possibilities for filming. In the middle of the square is the Fuente de Cibeles, dedicated to the Greek goddess Cybele. The fountain was built in 1782.

The square is surrounded by the buildings Palacio de Buenavista (Headquarters of the Army), the Palacio de Linares and the magnificent Palacio de Comunicaciones (seat of the Municipality), which since 2011 is called Palacio de Cibeles. In the background is the Puerta de Alcalá, the former city gate, which we had seen already once.

We go on to the Plaza de las Cortes with the monumental fountain Fuente de Neptuno.

At the corner there is the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. We leave it on the right and continue along the Congreso de los Diputados to the Puerta del Sol.