Few cities live café culture with the flair and passion of Madrid.  If you want to see the Madrileños enjoying it, I recommend you take a trip on any Sunday afternoon to the Barrio de Las Letras.  The neighborhood has had a long association with writers – hence the name – and is filled with cafés, bars, small shops and galleries.  It’s very central and only a few steps from the Paseo del Prado, but it feels quite secluded and self-contained.  Best of all, it feels like a real community, a place where people live and work, not some sterile, artificial “destination”.  Grab a table outside, a beer, a plate of paella mixta, and watch Madrid do what it does better than any city: unwinding with family and friends.

When evening arrives, the neighborhood’s many bars come to life.  I sat at the counter at Cocido de la Sena Daniela, and enjoyed a glass of Rioja and various tapas as I watched people come and go.  At one end of the bar a child, no more than six months old, sat on his mother’s lap, grinning and beating on the bar with his chubby fists, while at the other end a distinguished, elderly man, perhaps a widower, nursed his cognac.  Immediately beside me, a young woman slid to the edge of her bar stool so that she could lean in more closely and kiss her boyfriend. That’s Las Letras – a place everyone can find their place.