If you love Malasaña: Madrid’s neighbourhoods and their international twins

Five Madrid neighbourhoods, from Malasaña to Los Jerónimos, each paired with the districts in our other city guides that share its mood, its streets and its reasons to linger.

Every great city has a neighbourhood that feels like home the moment you arrive. If yours is Malasaña, Chamberí or Salamanca, our other guides know where to find its twin abroad: a district with the same mood, the same kind of streets and the same reasons to linger.

Each pairing below comes from our own guides to those cities. Read what the two places share, then follow the links to each guide’s page for the area. No two neighbourhoods are alike, and that is part of the pleasure: the twin is a way into a new city, not a copy of an old one.

Malasaña and Chueca

Malasaña and Chueca sit north of the Gran Vía, either side of Calle de Fuencarral: Malasaña around the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, Chueca around its own square and the Mercado de San Antón. Between them run independent shops, cafés such as Café Comercial and cocktail bars from Bar Cock to Museo Chicote.

Soho, in London, is the city’s liveliest district by day and by night. French Huguenots, then Italian, Greek and other communities gave it its delis, cafés and restaurants, and its jazz clubs and pubs became legendary.

Below the palaces and concept stores of Príncipe Real, Lisbon’s Bairro Alto is quiet by day and alive by night. Watch the sun set over the castle from the São Pedro de Alcântara terrace first.

The Marais, in Paris, mixes 17th-century mansions around the Place des Vosges with museums, shops and some of the city’s best bars, Little Red Door and Candelaria among them.

Chamberí

Chamberí is a residential district of 19th- and early-20th-century apartment buildings north of the centre. Almagro has its grandest balconied streets, the Plaza de Olavide, ringed with café terraces, is its living room, and its MICHELIN tables, Coque among them, fill with locals.

Marylebone, in London, grew up around the old village of St Marylebone, and its high street keeps a village feel: independent shops, cafés and Daunt Books, with the Wallace Collection and Wigmore Hall for art and music.

Prenzlauer Berg, north of Mitte in Berlin, has restored 19th-century apartment buildings, leafy squares such as Kollwitzplatz and wide streets of cafés. Take the U2 to Eberswalder Strasse and walk.

Gràcia, in Barcelona, was once a separate town and still feels like one: narrow streets open onto squares such as the Plaça del Sol, the neighbourhood’s living rooms, with Gaudí’s Casa Vicens in the lanes.

Salamanca

Salamanca was laid out in the 19th century as a grid of broad streets east of the Paseo de Recoletos. Serrano and Ortega y Gasset hold the luxury flagships, Jorge Juan the restaurants, and the Mercado de la Paz feeds the neighbourhood; the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, a collector’s house, is at its north end.

Mayfair, in London, was laid out by the great estates as squares and streets of elegant houses; Bond Street and Savile Row are its shopping streets, and Claridge’s, The Connaught and The Dorchester its grand hotels.

The twin is a way into a new city, not a copy of an old one.

The Upper East Side, in New York, has Madison Avenue for its shopping, the Carlyle, the Mark and the Lowell for its hotels, and the Frick Collection, a collector’s house of its own, at the start of Museum Mile.

Nişantaşı is Istanbul’s most elegant district: designer boutiques on Abdi İpekçi, Beymen and Vakko, lunch at Foxy and Hünkar, and Maçka Park and the Park Hyatt in Maçka Palas close by.

Centro and La Latina

The centre of Madrid runs from the Puerta del Sol to the Royal Palace, with the arcaded Plaza Mayor between them. South of it, La Latina has the taverns of the Cava Baja, cocido at Malacatín, flamenco at Corral de la Morería and, on Sundays, El Rastro.

Alfama, Lisbon’s oldest quarter, is a maze of stairways and small squares tumbling from the Castelo de São Jorge to the river, with fado at night and the Museu do Fado to explain it.

Trastevere, “across the Tiber”, is a maze of cobbled lanes around the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, full of trattorias, climbing to the Janiculum. Cross the Ponte Sisto at dusk.

Notting Hill, in London, has its own great street market: Portobello Road, famous for its Saturday antiques, with food and vintage stalls further north. Come on a Saturday morning, as you would to El Rastro on a Sunday.

Los Jerónimos and El Retiro

Between the Paseo del Prado and El Retiro, Los Jerónimos holds the Prado, with the Thyssen, the Botanic Garden and, at Atocha, the Reina Sofía along the avenue, and the Retiro’s lake and Palacio de Cristal beside it. Book the Prado for the first slot of the morning.

Amsterdam’s Museumplein gathers the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk and the Concertgebouw, with the green length of the Vondelpark beside them, as the Retiro lies beside the Prado.

The Louvre, in Paris, stands in the old royal heart of the city beside the Tuileries, with the Orangerie and the Bourse de Commerce close by and the Jardin du Palais-Royal a short walk away.

Mitte, the historic centre of Berlin, runs from the Brandenburg Gate along Unter den Linden to Museum Island. Walk Unter den Linden early, before the crowds, then cross to the museums.

Our advice: use the twins as a way in. On your first night in a new city, stay or dine in the twin of the Madrid neighbourhood you love, then explore outwards from there.