Adopting a question I found on an 'another board' I'm almost asking myself why Madrid? It has been my favourite destination for around 15 years and I'm now working here. Yet what can you get here that you can't in other parts of Spain or Europe? Museums? Food? Wine? Historic buildings?Nightlife? It's not as if there is a decent-sized river or sea to look at ? It's not the cheapest place to stay either. I think it must be down to the people here? On the whole a good mix (apart from the pickpockets and the odd shootist!) and a feeling that even when working hard you can still enjoy life... Perhaps the fact that it is not overrrun by tourists helps. I know Hemingway once stated that to get the feel of a Spanish city (as opposed to a Basque, Catalan or Andalucian one) Madrid is the best place to start...
Any thoughts anyone else?

I'm sure there's a lot of attraction to big cities because of employment opportunities but also because the BIG CITY has lots of energy, fashion & art, modern conveniences, good transportation, and the choices in food and nightlife. Small towns are nice if you want to relax in life but Spaniards are social and, maybe, the more people there are the more social they can be. While I was there my ladyfriend was lamenting while in traffic - several times - on M-30 and around the Vicente Calderon Atletico de Madrid (soccer stadium) during a match about how terrible it was to have a car in Madrid. She'd LOVE nothing more than to move to a smaller village to live our her days. We have this conflict between us. I'm pretty sure I'd feel cheated if I someday moved to Madrid and shortly thereafter moved to some small village.

So WHAT IS THE DEAL about Madrid? You don't hear SO MANY people flocking to Barcelona by comparison and that's the "jewel of Spain" - or so they say. Or maybe it's because "All Roads Lead To Madrid" - [b]location, location, location[b] in central Spain. You'll also find that MANY people living in Madrid are not FROM Madrid but from some other part of Spain or their parents are from some other part of Spain.

Good topic, filbert. Hopefully some of the Spaniards can help with this one.

Saludos, MadridMan

I´d have to agree with Madridman´s reasons for staying in the big city. After deciding to move to Europe I went looking for a place to get started and settled on Spain because of the energy, culture, and I think there are a lot of prospects here with the way the economy is growing. Plus I´ve always wanted to learn Spanish.

Since I work in a technical field that pretty much left either Barcelona or Madrid as the place to be (if all else fails I can live in Spain and commute to work elsewhere). In the end I think I picked Madrid because it was less touristy, and more... well Spanish I guess. I met so many foreigners and English-speakers while I was in Barcelona that I doubt I´d ever get around to learning the language, but here I have a lot more incentive.

True, because of this and of its size, Madrid is a great place for fun and a good one for business (within Spain). However because of this, also (I know somebody is going to kill me for saying this) Madrid is all of Spain and nothing of it. It's a mixture of ALL the communities like in a pizza, on a base of Spanish (in the same meaning you are using) base, mixed also with some international (anglo-saxon) and latino drops of sauce.

Great place, but few original "spanish" feeling. I'd recommend Valladolid as a modern city, Salamanca as a small one with universitary ambient, and Toledo for a historical/tradicional one.

De Madrid al Cielo!