Explorer Madrid

Puerta del Sol is a public square in the centre of Madrid and the point from which distances on Spain's radial roads are measured, marked by the Kilómetro Cero plaque. On its south side stands the Real Casa de Correos of 1766–1768, whose clock strikes the twelve chimes of New Year's Eve, and the square holds the statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree.

Plaza Mayor is a rectangular square in old Madrid, first built between 1580 and 1619 and enclosed by uniform arcaded buildings with 237 balconies. Its present look dates from Juan de Villanueva's rebuilding after a fire in 1790; the painted façade of the Casa de la Panadería faces the bronze equestrian statue of Philip III, made in 1616, at the centre.

Plaza de Cibeles is a square in central Madrid where Calle de Alcalá crosses the Paseo del Prado and Paseo de Recoletos. At its centre stands the Cibeles Fountain of 1782, designed by Ventura Rodríguez, with the goddess Cybele on a chariot drawn by two lions. The square is framed by the Palacio de Cibeles, Madrid's city hall, and the Bank of Spain.

Almudena Cathedral is the seat of the Archdiocese of Madrid, facing the Royal Palace. Begun in 1883 to plans by Francisco de Cubas, it was finished more than a century later and consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1993. Behind its grey-and-white classical exterior lies a Gothic Revival nave with modern chapels, and a Romanesque Revival crypt lies beneath.

Puerta de Alcalá is a neoclassical gate on Plaza de la Independencia, beside the main entrance to Retiro Park. King Charles III commissioned it from Francesco Sabatini to replace an older gate in the city wall on the road to Alcalá de Henares, and it was inaugurated in 1778. It has five openings, three of them arched, with sculpture by Francisco Gutiérrez and Roberto Michel.

The Temple of Debod is an ancient Nubian temple begun in the early 2nd century BC south of Aswan in Egypt as a chapel to Amun, and later enlarged under the Ptolemies and Roman emperors. Egypt gave it to Spain in 1968 for its help in saving the monuments of Nubia, and it was rebuilt with two of its stone gateways on a hill near the Royal Palace, opening in 1972.

Retiro Park is a 1.4 km² park on the edge of central Madrid, laid out in the 1630s as the gardens of the royal Buen Retiro Palace and opened to the public in 1868. Beside its large boating lake stands the colonnaded monument to King Alfonso XII, and the park also holds the glass Palacio de Cristal of 1887, a rose garden and many statues.