The grand bourgeois quarter east of the Castellana, laid out on a strict grid in the 1860s by the Marquis of Salamanca and now Madrid's most expensive postcode. The architecture is uniformly 19th-century mansion-blocks, the streets are wide and tree-lined, and the boutiques on Calle Serrano and Calle Ortega y Gasset are where Madrid's old money does its luxury shopping.
There is more here than expensive handbags. The neighbourhood holds the Museo Lázaro Galdiano (a private collection of European decorative arts in a beautiful palace house), the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, the National Library, and the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas — the city's main bullring, considered the most prestigious in the world. Metro Serrano, Velázquez, or Goya.