Malasaña, Madrid

This neighborhood could be summed up as the "post-Franco" neighborhood. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s this was ground zero for the movida madrileña , the "happening scene" of as Spain shed 40 years of oppression. This neighborhood is named after Manuela Malasaña, a fifteen-year-old martyr of the uprising against Napoleon's army on May 2, 1808. Goya depicts this epic moment is Spain's history in a series of paintings exhibited at the Prado Museum.

The best time to see this neighborhood is on May 1 -- all of Madrid shuts down and is the scene of festivities going until dawn. Plaza Dos de Mayo, named after the insurrection is the center for these festivities, but the celebration fills the entire barrio. Madrid has dedicated a number of street names to Malasaña many other rebels.

Just as Malasaña blossomed in the years of the movida madrileña, the neighborhood has begun a gentrification effort as real estate prices around the city have soared. Still known as an area of the young, (botellons are still more common in this barrio than many others) there are plenty of bars and an air of tolerance and freedom just as it always has. Manuela Malasaña would be proud looking at the barrio now.

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