There are icons football supporters cannot resist, and the stadium of each team is sacred to its supporters.
So that for a "madridista" (Real Madrid supporter), seeing the inside of the Santiago Bernabéu is something you have to do at least once in your life; or this is what the hundreds of people who queued that day might have thought.
More than an hour and a half, in the rain and the cold, in order to... be able to sit where those millionaire stars do, see the jacuzzi where those football players relax their muscles, being just at the level of the field, look at the empty grades and imagine how it would be with the clamor of the supporters.
After seeing the interior, the visit ends in the Museum where you can live the past glories and dream of future conquests. For those accompanying they can still be the reporters of the experience.
If you get the chance buy the ticket, pay the price, by a scarf or hat and enjoy the feel of Spanish Football. Sadly the stadium will be replaced, but it's the atmosphere and feel you get from the supporters hours before the match that makes it so special.
Madrid and the cinema get along, from the center to the periphery, where we will start this route, looking for peculiar places, as interesting for the visitor as they were to Pedro Almodóvar.
Do you remember the last scene of his first feature film Pepi, Lucy, Bom? Carmen Maura and Alaska cross the ancient Carretera de Andalucía next to the Hospital 12 de Octubre with a panoramic of the city. Today, this place has been replaced with a big roundabout, but just next to it is the Lineal de Manzanares Park, and inside a mountain with the La Dama del Manzanares, a sculpture by Manolo Valdés from which you can see a vision similar to the one the movie portrayed, and to appreciate the changes that have fallen since the movie was premiered.
Also, the park is the entrance to a great many hiking routes, which allow you to discover the peculiarities, such as the Channel that tried to convert the city into a port (trying to connect the Manzanares river with the sea, as incredible as this sounds) or the settings of the Jarama Battle, one of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish Civil War, a conflict that also left its marks in the emblematic Ópera Prima.
The leit motiv of this Fernando Trueba movie was the plaza of the same name (I recommend you visit it), but two of the main characters, Oscar Ladoire and Antonio Resines had their man to man talks along the Camino del Príncipe, a road with beautiful views over the Palación Real, near the Extremadura Road, from where we reach our next destination. Fade to black.