Salamanca

Salamanca is the neighbourhood where Madrid puts on a suit. The streets are wide, the buildings are immaculate, the shop windows display things you cannot afford, and nobody is wearing trainers. This is where Madrid's old money lives, in apartment buildings from the 1870s that were designed to look like small palaces and have succeeded entirely. Calle Serrano is the spine: Loewe, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and every Spanish luxury brand with an address to maintain.

But Salamanca is not just shopping for people with expense accounts. The Lazaro Galdiano museum (EUR7, free on Sundays) is a former mansion packed with art from Goya to Bosch to Gainsborough in a building where the parquet floors and painted ceilings are as interesting as the collection. The Fundacion Juan March hosts free art exhibitions that rival anything at the Reina Sofia. And the food here is excellent if you know where to look: the side streets off Calle de Jorge Juan and Calle de Claudio Coello have some of Madrid's best restaurants, from Michelin-starred tasting menus to the kind of neighbourhood bistro where the waiter knows everyone by name.

Lunch here can be surprisingly affordable if you stick to the menu del dia at the smaller restaurants on the side streets. EUR15-18 gets you three courses in a dining room where the tablecloths are ironed and the bread basket is refilled without asking. It's a different Madrid from Malasana or Lavapies, and that's the point. Salamanca doesn't apologise for being expensive. It just quietly assumes you can keep up.