Fuente de Cibeles
Retiro
The Plaza de Cibeles, where three of Madrid’s most affluent districts (Centro, Retiro, and Salamanca) intersect, is both an epicenter of municipal grandeur and a crash course in Spanish architecture. Two palaces, Buenavista and Linares (baroque and baroque revival, respectively), sit on the northern corners of the plaza and are dwarfed by the ornate Palacio de Cibeles. In the center of the plaza stands one of Madrid’s most defining symbols, Cybele Fountain, a depiction of the Roman goddess of the Earth driving a lion-drawn chariot. During the civil war, patriotic Madrileños risked life and limb to sandbag it as Franco's Nationalist aircraft bombed the city.
