Skip to content
The Bubble
Madrid

⛸️ The Tapa Weekend: December 15

A Christmas market, an ice skating rink and the man, the legend... Sting!

Photo by JavyGo on Unsplash

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | December 15, 2023 | Madrid | Issue #34

🎉 Welcome to a new issue of The Tapa: Weekend Edition! An English-language newsletter about what to do this weekend in Madrid (plus memes!)

🤑 The Tapa this week began offering paid subscriptions, and we’d be deeply thrilled if you purchased one to help build this enterprise we’ve had so much fun creating. And a big THANK YOU to those who already have.

🇪🇸 If you haven’t subscribed at all yet, hit that button below so you have some fresh ideas in your inbox every Friday about where to go and what to do.

Subscribe now

🫶 And if you have, please share this with your friends!

Share

Share

Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend

It’s Friday again! And no, it’s not snowing in Madrid (yet) but one can only hope to see a few snow flakes before January. Maybe even a white Christmas! Which, to our knowledge, has not happened in a long time.

So, while we hope for a blanca navidad, here are five things for you to do this weekend.

1. Christmas by Starlite: Madrid (This week featuring Sting)

We have no idea what a “boutique festival” is but we’re totally here for it. Apparently leaving Marbella to come to Madrid, Christmas by Starlite is a music festival that comes to rock the Christmas season, especially because it features performances by some of the biggest international starts such as Rod Stewart, Sting, Ricky Martin and Sebastián Yatra among others.

This festival started yesterday (sorry, you missed Rod Stewart) but it keeps going until the 20th, showcasing a series of major concerts that will leave you wanting more.

  • The first big show tonight includes the one and only, 17-time Grammy-winning artist Sting, who will deliver a special concert as part of his acclaimed My Songs world tour. Expect him to play classics such as "Roxanne," "Englishman in New York," "Every Breath You Take," and "Message in a Bottle" among others.

But that’s not all! Ricky Martin is also playing on Saturday night presenting "Ricky Martin Sinfónico," a show comprising his most iconic songs while accompanied on stage by over 60 symphonic musicians from the Malaga Orchestra. Goosebumps!

Make sure you check their website for other artists and get ready to celebrate Christmas dancing to “Livin’ La Vida Loca” because why the hell not?

Christmas by Starlite. Pavilion 12, IFEMA, Avenida del Partenon 5, Madrid. Through Dec. 20. Check website for program, schedule, hours and ticket prices.

2. Zambomba de Navidad: A Very Special Flamenco Christmas

If you’re wondering what a zambomba is, we got you covered: it’s a traditional, fun way to celebrate Christmas in the flamenco community. Consider it a Christmas carol with a very Spanish twist. And this weekend you get to experience one.

  • Flamenco Capital, a project organized by Madrid en Vivo that seeks to promote the flamenco scene in Madrid, is launching Navidades Flamenco Capital, in which some of the most classic flamenco venues in town host a series of incredible performances including concerts, zambombas, parties, flamenco-jazz, singing, guitar playing, dancing, and featuring established artists and up-and-coming artists.

This cycle kick off its programming on Sunday with classic zambombas performed by artists like María Reyes, Ana Polanco, Pilar Villar, Cristina Soler, and Pino Losada at Tablao de la Villa, and a zambomba led by the great Enrique Torres at Teatro Flamenco Madrid, accompanied by up to 10 artists on stage, with singing, guitar, piano, and percussion. If you’re a fan, don’t miss it (or you may need to wait a year).

Zambombas de Navidad. Dec. 17. Check website for hours, locations and ticket prices.

3. An Ice-Skating Rink in Cibeles (This one’s for the kids)

This year the ice-skating rink is called “Amazon y Cibeles sobre hielo” and apparently there’s a dystopian Amazon Christmas Market. (The video above is from last year. )

  • Yes, the ice-skating rink in Plaza España is probably much better. But this one is indoors and at the Palacio de Cibeles, which is always a good place to go visit. The rink there this year opens on Dec. 16 at the Galería de Cristal and is 400 m2 of pure, icy snowy bliss.

The reason it’s called Amazon & Cibeles on Ice it’s because it’s part of an “immersive experience” called Amazon and the Christmas Factory, which sounds like a Dickensian tale about Santa’s secret sweatshop in the North Pole. But what do we know.

  • Besides ice skating, visitors can explore the “Spain in a Click” Christmas market, which helps small and medium-sized businesses thrive, we guess.

Whatever, just take the kids ice skating there.

Amazon y Cibeles sobre hielo. Palacio de Cibeles, Plaza Cibeles 1, Madrid. December 16 to January 5. Check website for opening hours. Tickets: €6,50

4. St. George’s Church Christmas Fair

St. George’s Church rolls out its annual Christmas fair this weekend in the upscale Madrid neighborhood of Salamanca and it’s worth a visit.

  • Any city in the far-flung corners of the world with an English community worth its salt will have an Anglican church—and it will probably be named St. George’s. (Take Paris, Montreal, Venice… you get the idea).

Madrid’s is no exception. And this Saturday, like every year, the local St George’s promises (and we can vouch for this) a Christmas fair fiilled with “Fabulous food. Mulled wine. Craft makers, a definite win at our tombola…”

  • A “definite win at our tombola”? We’ll take that raffle.

  • And did we mention mulled wine? We did.

  • And fabulous food? That too.

Really, there’s no excuse not to go.

St. George’s Church Christmas Fair. Calle Nuñez de Balboa 43, Salamanca, Madrid. Dec. 16, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.. €2 admission and kids free (but bring money to buy stuff).

5. Photo Exhibit: Experimento IMAGINA

If you’re not a huge fan of Christmas, we get it. So here’s an interesting option for you.

  • The Serrería Belga Cultural Space is hosting the "Experiment IMAGINA" exhibition. The exhibit showcases impressive—and mostly unseen—images captured three decades ago by acclaimed photographers such as Ouka Leele, Cristina García Rodero, Manuel Falces, Carlos Pérez Siquier, Sarah Moon, Sibylle Bergemann, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Martin Parr.

The exhibit revisits the groundbreaking IMAGINA Project, which featured a historic gathering of global photographers in Almería during the early 1990s, marking the origins of the Andalusian Center of Photography (which now funds Experiment IMAGINA).

Curated by Jesús Segura, the exhibition features 49 images by 16 photographers, offering a glimpse into the diverse talents of artists mentioned above, with their photographs fall into three different categories:

  • "Ecologies of the Image," exploring the relationship between people and their natural surroundings;

  • "Social Critique," prompting reflections on communal relationships and concerns; and

  • "Collective Memory," delving into memories shaped by social interactions, shared traditions, and common history that surpass individual recollections. See? Worth visiting.

Experimento IMAGINA. Espacio Cultural Serrería Belga, C. de la Alameda, 15, Madrid. Through March 31. Check website for opening hours. Free admission.

👨🏻‍💻 Viral Story of the Week

🐶 Is that you, Perro Sanxe?

The whole amnesty debate thing was super tensy like watching your parents fight and it didn’t get a lot better when Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez flew to Strasbourg to address the European parliament and Catalan separatist boss Carles Puigdemont spent his time on the mic there threatening Sánchez with the statement that opportunities should be seized and, “If they are ignored, consequences are not pleasant.” Which means…something.

  • Really, we all just needed a laugh break. Which we got when, just after Sánchez spoke in Strasbourg, a dog somehow got on the mic (or just got into the building) and began barking up the storm (see above). Which let everyone have a good giggle and forget about the other stuff for a minute. And with it coming just after Sánchez spoke, left more than one person wondering, ‘Is that you, Perro Sanxe?’

  • “Dear colleagues, we must have a support animal in the house,” said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. And indeed it was, as it apparently belonged to a visually impaired visitor that was present at the session. Still pretty funny though.

🔔 A Message From Our Sponsor

Secret Kingdoms is your English bookstore in Madrid. It specializes in Spanish history and literature, contemporary and classic novels, books for children and young adults of all ages, history and historical fiction, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, poetry, biographies and much more.

  • Located on Calle de Moratín 7 — a few blocks away from the Prado Museum — and with over 20,000 new and used books, Secret Kingdoms has something for everyone.

Find out more at www.thesecretkingdoms.com

🙏 Once again, please remember to share this newsletter with your friends on social media. The more we grow, the more information we’ll be able to offer each week.

Share

We’ll be back next week with more.

Read the original on Substack