Flamenco in Madrid

A bit of cultural immersion

November 12, 2023

When I last left off in recapping our time in Madrid, we had taken a bike ride through Retiro Park. After that, Shelby and I headed off on our own to go to a flamenco performance. I had seen flamenco before, but only in the Bay Area and many, many years ago. (Fun fact: I wrote my senior paper in high school on flamenco guitar.) We walked from the park to the performance thinking we’d find a cafe to grab something to eat at. Ha—it was the time of day when mot much is open in Madrid, so we were lucky to find anything at all. Sadly, we discovered too little too late that Honest Greens (which we fell in love with in Portugal) had a location right on our way!

We were happy to walk by some landmarks in Madrid, including the Museo Nacional del Prado and Fuente de Cibeles. I even saw the Real Academia Española, which made me chuckle and reminded me of my days working in Hispanic advertising in San Francisco; we referenced the RAE as the gospel for all our language work.

We arrived at the flamenco show with about 5 minutes till they opened the doors. Fortunately, we had enough time to relax before the show itself started. The venue, Torres Bermejas, was lovely and intimate. We opted not to eat dinner there, though, as the performance alone was ~$30 per person.

If you’re not familiar with flamenco, here’s a quick overview. Flamenco also has multiple styles, but don’t ask me which one we saw because I don’t know! Shelby took more video than me during the performance, but here’s a taste of what we got to see:

Have you watched a flamenco performance? What did you think? Shelby loved it. If/when we end up back in Spain, we’d love to see another.