The right way to see Madrid

I got Madrid utterly wrong for quite a long time. It’s a lovely city to walk in, and I thought it was idealistic and innocent, like Don Quixote. But its strength is the easy-going tricksiness of a Sancho Panza. It is a little like Toledo or Seville in the picaresque 17th century.

I’ve only been robbed once, not violently, but it should have been more, so foolishly trusting was I, leaving my bag unattended or my jacket on the back of a chair. Not that Madrid is dangerous. You can saunter southwards from the marvellous Museo Sorolla (the house of the striking Sargent-like painter, stuffed with his canvases) in Paseo Martínez Campos, through streets of non-chain shops, down to the latitude of the Prado.

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On the way there are bars or cafés — the concepts overlap. For the Spanish have invented meals to fill in every hour of the day: rich, rich breakfast chocolate with oily dough-stick churros; a sort of elevenses with savoury bits and pieces; a long lunch from 2 p.m.;