The old medieval quarter south-west of Plaza Mayor, narrow-streeted, scattered with small plazas and tucked-away churches, and the centre of Madrid's Sunday tapas culture. The neighbourhood gets its name from a long-vanished hospital founded by the 15th-century scholar Beatriz Galindo, nicknamed La Latina for her command of the language.
Three things to do here: walk the back streets around Plaza de la Paja, Plaza de San Andrés, and Plaza de la Cebada for some of the most atmospheric townscape in central Madrid; eat your way along Cava Baja (twenty-odd tapas bars in a single street); and join the Sunday morning El Rastro flea market that sprawls across the southern end of the neighbourhood. The basilica of San Francisco el Grande and the church of San Andrés are both worth ducking into. Metro La Latina or Tirso de Molina.