Madrid

The Witnesses of Villa y Corte

You're about to start in the most photographed square in Spain, the one on every postcard, and you're about to discover that almost no one looks closely at what's right in front of them: a second animal on a shield that everyone walks over, a ball that only moves once a year, a bear that doesn't pose the way it does on the city's own street signs. Habsburg Madrid — Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Plaza de la Villa — keeps its best details at eye level, not behind glass. It's a little over a kilometre and a half in total.