“This is also Madrid It is not the guide you are imagining, but it is the one you need.” This is how Ricardo Blanco introduces what is his first book, a compilation of 101 places to get to know the capital beyond the central area. Its pages do not include the Puerta de Alcalá, the Royal Palace or the Buen Retiro park, but it promises to rediscover the city and explore many places that are always, unfairly, left out of the classic guides about Madrid.
It all started during the pandemic. Confinement not only served to spend a lot of time at home making pastries or recording videos for social networks, there are those who knew how to take advantage of the time of confinement like Ricardo, who set out to explore his district, Vicálvaro, and other parts of the city that had never been I had stopped to explore thoroughly. From these expeditions several threads emerged on X (formerly Twitter) in which he documented everything that caught his attention about the places he visited. “I had been interested in the topic of the 13 towns annexed to Madrid for a long time, so I began to visit them one by one, contacting local people, institutions and neighbors,” he says.
The threads in X led to a collaboration with the program Today for Today on Cadena Ser, and finally the publishing house Ediciones La Librería proposed to compile them in a book titled This is also Madrid. Ricardo has spent four years compiling all the information in this guide, an activity that he has combined with teaching the Getting to Know Madrid municipal courses, in which he toured the peripheral neighborhoods and districts of the city with small groups.
Arganzuela, Barajas, Carabanchel, Chamartín, Ciudad Lineal, Fuencarral-El Pardo, Hortaleza, Latina, Moncloa-Aravaca, Moratalaz, Puente de Vallecas, San Blas-Canillejas, Tetuán, Usera, Vicálvaro, Villa de Vallecas and Villaverde. These are the 17 districts that Ricardo has dedicated himself to exhaustively exploring over the past four years. Left out are Centro, Retiro, Chamberí and Salamanca. The journalist denies that this is any kind of discrediting of these areas, but with this book he seeks to escape the “centralization” to which Madrid is subjected due to the current city model. “The center is important, but the majority of the population lives in the periphery,” explains Ricardo in conversation with Somos Madrid.
With this guide he aims to convey to readers that what is traditional goes beyond the M-30. “Casticismo is also present in neighborhoods such as Carabanchel, Vallecas, Vicálvaro or Hortaleza,” he points out. Not only in terms of what affects their cultural identity, but also because of the collateral damage that centralization brings with it: “It not only affects the visibility of these neighborhoods, but also the services that arrive and the offer of cultural activities, which tend to be concentrated in the center.”
For this reason, it has decided to highlight the most emblematic and at the same time unknown spaces of these 17 districts. From visiting the oldest building in the capital, which is in Carabanchel, to relaxing at a concert surrounded by hundreds of olive trees a few meters from Paseo de la Castellana, to enjoying impressive views of the city on top of a barn in Hortaleza , visit the largest wetland in the capital in an old mining area and even discover a curious church built under the M-30. What Ricardo defines as “the keys to falling in love with the capital again or doing it for the first time.”
Vicálvaro as a starting point
Vicálvaro holds a special place in Ricardo’s heart. Not only because it was his birth district but because it was where it all began. There he learned the meaning of “making a neighborhood,” one of the questions that haunt this book. “For me, it means knowing where you live. Only by knowing its history and heritage can you appreciate and defend it,” he says. This is part of what he tries to convey in his book.
It is difficult to know the history of a place if there is not someone who has made an effort to guard and compile it previously. In this sense, museums and archives play a fundamental role. Vicálvaro was precisely one of those districts in which access to information about its origins and past was quite limited until 1982 when a group of neighbors, under the name of the Vicus Albus Association, decided to compile all the material they had. With the support and help of other Vicalvareños they managed to build what is today the Museum of the History of Vicálvaro.
This book was born with the vocation of making a neighborhood at the same time as making a city.
Ricardo Blanco Sánchez
— Author of ‘This is also Madrid’
It is the first museum in Madrid on the history of a specific district. In just four walls it houses almost seven centuries of history, from photographs and plans, to machinery and statues. This museum is not only a cultural treasure, it is a neighborhood conquest that confirms one of the keys to This is also Madrid: the importance of making a neighborhood at the same time as making a city.
Therefore, when asking Ricardo what he would recommend visiting in his district to someone who has never heard of Vicálvaro, the museum tops the list. For the author of the book, historical, cultural and natural heritage is as important as human heritage: “Without the passion, experiences and stories of all the people who have participated in this book, nothing would make sense. They are already part of Madrid’s collective memory.”
Added to his list of recommendations is the historic center of Vicálvaro, especially the surroundings of the Plaza de Don Antonio de Andrés, where “it is still possible to feel the atmosphere of a town with its bars and houses.” Ricardo defines this neighborhood as “an area in which there are still some residents who say they are going to Madrid when they leave the district and go to the center of the capital.” A place that no longer exists.
Madrid with another look
Of course, Vicálvaro is not the only prominent place on his list, where there is room for another 16 districts in which he has put the same effort and care into studying them in depth. In approximately 250 pages Ricardo has managed to condense the information of 101 almost secret places in many cases. “It’s not about comparing, but about giving visibility to a part of Madrid that also forms its identity,” he clarifies.
The author’s approach is not based on competing with the center, but on completing the vision of Madrid, highlighting its periphery. Ricardo considers that there is a lot of ignorance about many neighborhoods and districts, not only on the part of people who come from outside, but also by the people of Madrid themselves: “Places like the gardens of the Finca de Vista Alegre in Carabanchel are usually unknown even to those who live over there”.
Some districts occupy more pages in the book than others, but, as its author confirms, “this is not about any favoritism.” Its extension and number of places of interest make Moncloa-Aravaca or Fuencarral-El Pardo some of the most compelling chapters. That does not mean that the rest are left behind, others like Moratalaz or Villaverde have also found their place in this guide. Although Ricardo clearly has his favorites: Vicálvaro, of course, and Carbanchel, a district he fell in love with when he researched its history and heritage.
Of the hundred recommendations that his book includes, three places stand out above the rest: the Vista Alegre Estate in Carabanchel, the Hortaleza silo and the Alameda Castle in Barajas. To know the rest you have to read This is also Madridwhere Ricardo Blanco not only encourages learning more about the history and culture of the capital, but also proposes that readers visit each of the 101 places highlighted in the guide with which he promises to show the city from another perspective.
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