Puerta del Sol and Kilometre Zero
Chapter 1/11 · Madrid
Welcome to Madrid, the capital of Spain and its most populous municipality: according to the INE population register, it had 3,506,730 inhabitants on 1 January 2025! We start at Puerta del Sol, next to the Kilometre Zero plaque. This is a circular walk of about three kilometres through Habsburg Madrid and the area around the Royal Palace, almost entirely flat. We will finish right here.
The name is said to come from a sun that decorated one of the gates in the wall that surrounded Madrid in the 15th century, a gate facing east. The brick and stone building in front of you is the Real Casa de Correos, the Royal Post Office, the oldest building on the square, built between 1766 and 1768 by the French architect Jaime Marquet. It later housed the Ministry of the Interior and today it is the seat of the President of the Community of Madrid. The square owes its semicircular shape to a major redesign between 1857 and 1862, and since August 2020 it has been fully pedestrian.
Look down: the Kilometre Zero plaque marks the starting point of Spain's radial roads. Up in the tower is the clock that the clockmaker José Rodríguez Losada gave to the city, inaugurated on 19 November 1866. Every 31 December its chimes mark the twelve lucky grapes of New Year's Eve, and they have been broadcast on television to all of Spain since 1962.
On the north side of the square, look for the statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree, the figures on Madrid's coat of arms, by Antonio Navarro Santafé, installed in 1967; it is one of the locals' favourite meeting points. In the middle of the square rides Charles III, the king who modernised the city in the 18th century.
Now we leave along Calle de Esparteros and Calle de Postas to the Plaza Mayor.
Start · Madrid