With so many leisure options available and an almost endless variety of things to do in the city, the projects that stand out are the ones built around something genuinely different. When it comes to activities that go beyond the obvious, graffiti and street art are our tools of choice. We use them to guide cultural trips in Madrid that leave a real impression.
At Cooltourspain, this educational, social, and cultural project started in Lavapiés and has since expanded into neighbourhoods like Tetuán, Usera, Malasaña, and Vallecas. It goes beyond offering a fresh perspective on contemporary art. It also connects with themes from the UN’s 2030 Agenda: social justice, equality, empowerment, sustainability, and responsibility.
Before going further: our tours typically last around 2 hours and run in Spanish, English, and French. They’re open to everyone: curious travellers, local residents, school groups, and cultural professionals alike.
- Our 3 street art cultural trips in Madrid
- Art galleries and studios you won’t find on a map
- Cycling and panoramic routes across the city
What are the 3 main cultural trips in Madrid focused on street art?
Our team of art historians, graffiti artists, and educators has spent over a decade designing cultural trips in Madrid built entirely around street art. Our roots in the local emerging artistic community and the depth of knowledge we bring to the subject shape every route we run.
Each route includes a set number of stops where we discuss and analyse the works we encounter. We also build in time for photographs : of the walls, the lettering or the details. What’s your favourite artistic style?
Depending on your interests, you can also paint on A3 paper or on 100% cotton tote bags using recycled stencils and spray cans. More than 3,000 people joined one of our urban art tours last year alone.
Lavapiés: a multicultural and colourful neighbourhood
We chose the Embajadores district as the starting point for our first cultural trips in Madrid. That’s where it all began : watching festivals like CALLE and Urvanity unfold around us, alongside the city’s raw graffiti scene.
Along Calle Argumosa, Calle Doctor Fourquet, and Calle Miguel Servet, we stop at several community art projects. Have you heard of the urban garden called ‘Esta es una Plaza‘? We take the time to explain the history and milestones of this community space. Another mural worth stopping at sits in the field of the Dragons of Lavapiés football club .
La Movida Madrileña and graffiti on cultural trips in Madrid
Our second most popular tour moves towards the city centre and the Universidad district. The neighbourhood we walk through is Malasaña and ours stops include renowned squares like Juan Pujol, Dos de Mayo, and Plaza España. On that note, very few cultural trips in Madrid will tell you how the city’s street art scene emerged in the 1980s as clearly as we do.
The Malasaña tour covers the works from the Pinta Malasaña festival and the ongoing territorial tension between urban artists, designers, illustrators, and graffiti crews. As a curious detail: new pieces in this neighbourhood rarely survive more than 48 to 72 hours.
Tetuán: an urban perspective with a local guide
Next, we’d like to propose a route through a neighbourhood that most visitors never think to explore. This is one of our cultural trips in Madrid in the Tetuán neighbourhood, a part of the city that sits well outside the standard tourist circuit.
The welcome mural on this route belongs to the Madrid-based artist Suso33, who painted ‘Ausencias’ here. It’s a piece that always generates discussion. We also explain how the artist El Rey de la Ruina negotiates with local building owners to paint their facades, generally using bold colour patterns and silhouettes. Beyond the art, you’ll hear stories from the life of the neighbourhood from a guide who genuinely knows it.
What else do cultural trips in Madrid offer residents and visitors?
There’s more to discover if you want to keep going. Some of our cultural trips in Madrid stay unconventional, focusing on unique monuments and off-the-radar spaces. Others take a more traditional direction, ultimately the choice is entirely yours. We welcome clients with all kinds of interests and backgrounds. Furthermore, while many of our visitors come from abroad, we’re also proud to be a top choice for Madrid locals.
On one hand, we host contemporary art enthusiasts. On the other, we can guide you through institutions like the Prado, the Reina Sofía, or the Royal Palace itself with a certified official guide. In the spirit of sustainability, we always recommend walking where possible. For panoramic visits, we also offer urban bikes and a fleet of modern e-bikes.
Contemporary art for every budget
Enjoying contemporary art doesn’t require a large budget. Our guides have developed a series of cultural trips in Madrid centred on galleries along Calle Doctor Fourquet in Lavapiés and artist studios in the Usera district.
Depending on the day and time, we can arrange a meeting with the artist themselves, so participants hear directly about their influences and creative process. Here is a preview of some of the private spaces you might visit during our Madrid art galleries tour:
- Swinton & Grant. Street art and post-graffiti bookshop and gallery (Calle Miguel Servet, 21)
- Galería MPA. The personal space of Moisés Pérez Albéniz in Embajadores (Calle Doctor Fourquet, 20)
- Espacio Oculto. A unique artistic coworking space (Calle Nicolás Usera, 27)
Cultural trips to Madrid’s national heritage
Within the more traditional tourism landscape, there’s still room to offer cultural trips in Madrid with a distinctive angle. That angle might come from a guide’s speciality, a feminist reading of the collections, for example, or from a specific historical focus such as Habsburg Madrid.
In all cases, we handle ticket booking in advance. We also recommend audio guides for groups of more than five people, and always provide wireless earpiece sets, so other groups never interfere with your experience.
For VIP services, we add access to temporary exhibitions at the Thyssen or the Colección Real gallery. If your trip takes you beyond the capital, we also recommend Toledo or Segovia as complementary day trips.
Panoramic cycling tours of Madrid
We round off our offer with a tour on two wheels. The meeting point for this cultural trip in Madrid is outside the Carrefour Express on Calle Montera, 32. From there we’ll head to collect the bikes on Calle Jardines.
This two and a half hours route takes in large-scale murals and commissioned works across Chueca, Malasaña, San Bernardo and Noviciado, the city centre, Embajadores, and La Latina. Please note: this tour is recommended for people with previous cycling experience.
Cooltourspain’s take on cultural trips in Madrid
Anyone interested in joining our cultural trips in Madrid should know upfront that these are paid activities, and that payment is made in advance (through our website, via Bizum, or by payment link).
That clarity matters to us because the experience we offer has real value. We are not a platform that aggregates guides. We are a team of professionals who specialise in urban art and graffiti, and who have spent more than ten years building something specific in this city. The routes we run are not borrowed from a guidebook. They were built from the inside out, in neighbourhoods we know personally.
Madrid’s streets teach things that no classroom and no museum can fully replicate. The works on the walls of Lavapiés, Malasaña, and Tetuán are not just decoration. They are arguments, histories, and community acts. Our job is to make sure you leave understanding the difference. Get in touch with us at +34638399784 or at info@cooltourspain.com to book your cultural trip in Madrid.
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