1. Fiestas de la Virgen de la Paloma
Madrid's biggest summer verbena closes out August across La Latina and Las Vistillas. Four nights of free concerts run on two stages, from Celtas Cortos to Miss Caffeina, alongside a solemn procession on 15 August and the ceremonial lowering of the Virgin's painting by Madrid's firefighters. Expect chotis dancing, a waiters' race, a parchís championship and a free chocolatada as the whole neighbourhood turns into one long open-air party.
🚩 Local festivals
🏛️ Fiestas de la Virgen de la Paloma (Multiple venues)
🎟️ Free
📅 13–16 August
⏰ Daily from 11:00
2. Cibeles de Cine
Every summer the glass-roofed courtyard of the Palacio de Cibeles turns into a 700-seat open-air cinema, climate-controlled so screenings go ahead whatever the weather. This eleventh edition pairs new releases with restored classics and anniversary titles, from Pulp Fiction to Moulin Rouge, with a season-long tribute to Spanish cinema. Wireless headphones come with every seat, and a gastro-bar area opens two hours before each 10pm screening.
🚩 Other Events
🏛️ CentroCentro – Palacio de Cibeles (Plaza de Cibeles, 1)
🎟️ From €7
📅 Until 10 September
⏰ Nightly screenings at 22:00
3. Veranos de la Villa
Madrid hands the city over to culture for its 42nd summer festival, spreading 193 events across 14 districts and five main venues, from Condeduque to the Auditorio Tierno Galván. The line-up ranges from Lila Downs and Alain Pérez to a world-premiere ABBA symphonic tribute, alongside dance, flamenco, open-air cinema and circus. More than a hundred of the events are free, with tickets required only for the bigger concerts.
🚩 Music & Concerts
🏛️ Veranos de la Villa 2026 (Multiple venues)
🎟️ Free / From €11.25
📅 Until 29 August
⏰ Varies by event
4. Isabel Muñoz: Las Piedras del Cielo
Photographer Isabel Muñoz spent months studying the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and the surrounding La Herrería forest for this exhibition, which opened PHotoESPAÑA's 29th edition. Photographs sit alongside objects, video and installation to trace Philip II's vision for the monastery through granite, water channels and its famous library, treating stone as a record of intellectual ambition rather than a simple backdrop.
🚩 Exhibitions & Art
🏛️ Galería de las Colecciones Reales (Calle de Bailén, s/n)
🎟️ Free
📅 Until 6 September
⏰ Mon–Sat 10:00–20:00, Sun 10:00–19:00
5. Annie Leibovitz: México 86
"My idea was that there would be three elements in every poster: the man, the ball, and the earth," Annie Leibovitz said of the campaign she shot for Mexico's 1986 World Cup. This exhibition brings together all thirteen images, showing footballers set against Chichén Itzá, Uxmal and other archaeological sites, in what was the first World Cup visual identity built entirely around photography rather than illustration.
🚩 Exhibitions & Art
🏛️ Fundación Casa de México en España (Calle de Alberto Aguilera, 20)
🎟️ Free
📅 Until 20 September
⏰ Mon 10:00–19:00, Tue–Sat 10:00–21:00, Sun 10:00–14:00
6. Carmen Laffón: Variaciones
Carmen Laffón spent more than sixty years returning to the same handful of subjects: wicker baskets, sewing machines, wardrobes, the marshes of Doñana. This retrospective, the first dedicated to the Seville-born painter and sculptor since her death in 2021, gathers around 80 oils, pastels, charcoals and sculptures, organised by recurring motif rather than by date, tracing decades of variation on themes she never tired of.
🚩 Exhibitions & Art
🏛️ Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Paseo del Prado, 8)
🎟️ €14
📅 Until 27 September
⏰ Tue–Sun 10:00–19:00 (extended in summer)
7. Somos Naturaleza
Three galleries at CaixaForum have been rebuilt into a 70-minute immersive route on biodiversity, produced with National Geographic and backed by the United Nations. A large-format audiovisual piece leads into a digital gallery of cellular structures and root systems, before closing with real-world case studies of environmental recovery. The show won Best International Exhibition at the 2025 Numix Awards.
🚩 Exhibitions & Art
🏛️ CaixaForum Madrid (Paseo del Prado, 36)
🎟️ €6
📅 Until 7 March 2027
⏰ Daily 10:00–20:00
8. Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Sweet Revenge
Felix Gonzalez-Torres spent part of his childhood in Madrid before returning in 1991, later writing that the return felt like "sweet revenge." This first large-scale presentation of his work in Spain spans ten rooms and more than fifty pieces, including loans from the Guggenheim and SFMOMA, built from unglamorous materials such as candy piles, paper stacks and strings of lights that visitors are invited to touch, take from and alter.
🚩 Exhibitions & Art
🏛️ Museo Reina Sofía (Calle de Santa Isabel, 52)
🎟️ €12
📅 Until 12 October
⏰ Mon, Wed–Sat 10:00–21:00, Sun 10:00–14:30 (closed Tue)
9. Prado. Siglo XXI
Since the year 2000 the Prado has added almost a thousand works to its collection, and this exhibition is the museum's own audit of that growth. Highlights range from a monumental Roman Torso of Aphrodite to a Sorolla portrait and a Ramón Gaya watercolour, with a deliberate effort to bring more women artists, among them Sofonisba Anguissola and Rosa Bonheur, into a collection that long excluded them.
🚩 Exhibitions & Art
🏛️ Museo Nacional del Prado (Calle de Ruiz de Alarcón, s/n)
🎟️ €15
📅 Until 27 September
⏰ Mon–Sat 10:00–20:00, Sun 10:00–19:00
10. Espacio Cultural Vegetal
CentroCentro turns one of its exhibition rooms into a shaded indoor garden for the second summer running, filled with native plant species from Madrid's parks department and arranged around reading corners rather than laid out as a conventional show. It's built as somewhere to sit and cool down inside the Palacio de Cibeles, with a botanical drawing workshop and a flamenco performance scheduled during its run.
🚩 Nature & Outdoors
🏛️ CentroCentro (Plaza de Cibeles, 1)
🎟️ Free
📅 Until 30 August
⏰ Tue–Sun 10:00–20:00
11. Museum of Illusions Madrid
A few minutes from Sol, this interactive museum fills 650 square metres with rooms built to disorient and photograph rather than observe from behind a rope. A rotating cylinder tricks the brain into feeling off-balance in the Vortex Tunnel, furniture hangs from the ceiling in the Upside Down Room, and a logic games section offers wooden puzzles as a change of pace from the visual illusions throughout.
🚩 Experiences & Tours
🏛️ Museum of Illusions Madrid (Calle Doctor Cortezo, 8)
🎟️ From €13
📅 Open year-round
⏰ Mon–Thu 10:00–21:00, Fri 10:00–22:00, Sat 09:30–22:30, Sun 09:30–21:00
12. IKONO Madrid
Opposite the Reina Sofía, this permanent immersive space moves visitors through more than twelve rooms designed by international artists, including a mirrored hall of floating metallic balloons, a lantern-lit bamboo forest, and a light-painting room inspired by the technique associated with Picasso. The roughly hour-long route recently added Coloris Iris, which captures a high-resolution portrait of your own eye.
🚩 Experiences & Tours
🏛️ IKONO Madrid (Calle de Sánchez Bustillo, 7)
🎟️ From €15.50
📅 Open year-round
⏰ Mon–Thu 10:30–22:00, Fri–Sun 10:00–22:00
13. Tour Bernabéu – Real Madrid Museum
The self-guided tour through Real Madrid's stadium takes in all 15 Champions League trophies, the largest haul of any club in the competition's history, alongside the club's recent transformation into what it calls the Bernabéu of the 21st century. The route covers the museum, trophy rooms and a panoramic pitch view, finishing at the official club shop, and typically takes 45 to 90 minutes.
🚩 Experiences & Tours
🏛️ Santiago Bernabéu (Avenida de Concha Espina, 1)
🎟️ From €35
📅 Open year-round
⏰ Mon–Sat 09:00–19:00, Sun 09:30–18:30
14. Tablao Flamenco 1911
Recognised as the oldest working flamenco venue in the world, this tiled room on Plaza de Santa Ana once drew Ernest Hemingway and Ava Gardner as regulars. Live one-hour shows run four times daily, presenting professional cantaores, bailaores and guitarists under the artistic direction of flamenco dancer Antonio Canales, in a building whose performance history stretches back over a century.
🚩 Shows & Dance
🏛️ Tablao Flamenco 1911 (Plaza de Santa Ana, 15)
🎟️ From €39
📅 Daily, year-round
⏰ Daily 18:00, 19:30, 21:00, 22:30
15. Chaos Lab Madrid
An eccentric scientist called Dr Splat needs apprentices, and for about 75 minutes every child in the room gets the job. This hands-on science playground moves small groups through themed rooms built around colour, water, motion and gravity, including a planetarium and a ball pit, with a live interactive show partway through. The whole experience runs indoors and air-conditioned at Centro Comercial Islazul.
🚩 Family & Kids
🏛️ Centro Comercial Islazul (Calle de la Calderilla, 1)
🎟️ From €12
📅 Until 7 November
⏰ Thu–Sun, various time slots
