Northern Districts, Madrid

In 1947 the financier Lázaro Galdiano left to the nation his rich art collection and his mansion, Parque Florido, in which the Lázaro Galdiano Museum was opened in 1951.The museum contains a huge collection, totalling some 9,000 items in 30 rooms on three floors. There is a wealth of arms and armor, coins and medals, jewelry, Gothic ivories, Baroque crystal, Italian terracottas, tapestries, fabrics and much more.

The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium lies in the most modern development zone in Madrid, where new tower blocks, shopping centers and underground garages have transformed the Paseo de la Castallena into a busy traffic artery throbbing with hectic life and activity. Seventy years ago this area, now given over to asphalt, steel and concrete, was occupied by a scatter of suburban houses and unbuilt land. Here in 1923 Madrid's first football club, the Real Madrid Fútbol Club, established its first ground. It could accommodate 22,500 spectators and had a roofed stand with straw-bottomed chairs for important guests. In 1944 work began on the construction of a larger stadium in keeping with the importance of the country's leading football team. The new stadium, completed in 1946 and named after the founder and Chairman of Real Madrid, has room for 125,000 spectators. It was renovated and modernized for the 1982 World Cup.

Alameda de Osuña, also called El Capricho, is a former mansion about which many tales are told. The little lakes and pools in the park and the "House of the Old" are especially charming.The garden was created by Duchess of Osuna in the 18th century. Between the entrance and the neo-classical palace is a formal garden with parterre, fountain and exedra with a bronze figure of the duchess surrounded by sphinxes. To the south is an informal woodland garden with maze, shady walks and orchards. To the north is a landscape garden with an ornamental beehive, a temple of Bacchus and a figure of Saturn devouring his son. There is a stream flowing in to a lake where stands the tomb of the third Duke of Osuna. Another stream flows into the Dance Pavilion surrounded by a carpet of bulbs.

Under the flyover which crosses the busy Paseo de la Castellana between the Paseo de Eduardo Dato and Calle de Juan Bravo is the municipal open-air Museum of Abstract Art, with work presented by leading Spanish artists.The display begins with works by Julio González and Alberto Sánchez, members of the avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s. The collection includes work by such leading contemporary sculptors as Andrés Alfaro, Pablo Serrano, Martín Chirino, José María Subirachs and Amadeo Gabino; notable are Eduardo Chillida's "Stranded Mermaid" and Joan Miró's "Mère Ubu".

The Moorish-style villa of the art-collector Guillermo de Osma and his wife, Condesa de Valencia de Don Juan, houses one of the most attractive museums in Madrid, relatively little visited by tourists. The collection, founded in 1916, includes arms and armor, miniatures, Flemish tapestries, coins, autograph manuscripts, fabrics and jewelry. The pottery of the Spanish/Arab and Mudéjar periods is of particular quality, and the pictures include an El Greco and several early Goya drawings.

A number of exhibits including ones on Geology, Paleontology, Zoology and Mineralogy, have been recently added to the museum.A wide number of meteorites are an exceptionally valuable part of the museums collection, as are the fossil of 550million year old gastropod and the numerous skeletons of other dinosaurs.A section displaying the evolution of humanity from Australopithecus onwards to Homo Sapien Sapien.

This wide avenue is the northern continuation of the Paseo de Recoletos, which itself is the continuation of the Paseo del Prado. In common with these two thoroughfares it is distinguished by a wide green dividing strip between the two multi-lane carriageways. Today it forms a focal point for the commercial and social life of the young city of Madrid, modern and emphatically European in its receptiveness to everything new.

The Azca Center is only a short distance from the exhibition and conference building, between the Paseo del la Castellana and the Calles General Peron, Raimundo Fernandez Villaverde and Orense. Built in 1967 to plans by Antonio Perpina, the building complex offers 20 hectares/240,000sq.yd space for commercial and entertainment facilities.

Completed in 1989, this concert center is the home of the Radio and Television Orchestras, as well as the Spanish National Orchestra, which was formerly based in the Teatro Real. In Hall A (Auditorio principal) there are over 2,280 seats, in Hall B, designed for chamber music, over 707. The center can also claim the highest international standards in terms of its technical and acoustical specifications.

The museum features six collections; Systematic Minerals, Mineral Resources, Minerals from the Autonomous Regions, Spanish Flora and Fossilized Invertebrates, Foreign Fossils and Fossilized Vertebrates. These includes over 3,500 minerals and 6,000 fossils.

This is the largest shopping centre in the city. A glass construction of futuristic appearance in the district of El Pilar in the north of Madrid, it encloses a selling area containing 350 shops (including two department stores) in which all conceivable consumer needs are catered for.

The art villa, built in 1911 by Joaquin Sorolla, houses some hundred works by this little-known impressionist painter, dating from 1890 to 1920. Of interest are the prestigious salon, a rural kitchen, a dining room with a decorative ''oranges and lemons'' frieze and the artist's studio.

The terrace has a formal layout of clipped box hedges with a square pool and fountain surrounded by four Spanish firs. Equestrian statues flank generous steps that lead to a circular pool and a statue of Charles III.

The museum displays are designed to be touched. Items include works blind and visually impaired artists as well as blind material and sculptures by contemporary artists.

Behind the Auditorio Nacional de Musica on the busy Calle Priàncipe de Vergara the new city museum has been opened.

This is the chapel where famous painter Francisco de Goya is buried. The dome of the chapel was painted by Goya in 1798.

This 24-hour shopping center lies in the north of Madrid, at Avda. Pío XII, 2, near Chamartín Station. A complete range of food and household goods are available.

On the Avenida del General Perón a modern shopping center has been built with 78 shops, cultural facilities and banks.

The Exhibition of the Best Trophies displays all of the European Cups as well as other related materials.

In this district are to be found the most exclusive and elegant shops in Madrid. Antique hunters will also find their time here well spent.