This article first appeared in The Madrid Review blog.
If I’m honest, I didn’t set out with Madrid in mind.
When I first started thinking about where to host a literary retreat (a long weekend dedicated to reading, bookshop crawls and literary tours), there were plenty of obvious contenders.
Paris, with its café-lined boulevards and ghosts of Hemingway. Dublin, the land of Joyce and Yeats. London, where every corner seems to have inspired a classic.
And yet, each of those choices felt… expected. Beautiful, yes, but also busy, expensive and saturated. I wanted a city that felt literary but lived-in, cultured but approachable.
Somewhere in Europe that could offer literary heritage at its best but without the price tag of a Parisian croissant.
That’s when Madrid quietly began to whisper its name. I’d visited the city before, fleetingly, but this time I wanted to see it differently: not as a tourist ticking off sights, but as a reader stepping inside a story.
At first, it was a practical choice. Spain’s capital is central and well-connected; it’s easy to reach from almost anywhere in Europe, including my home country, the UK.
The city’s cost of living is lower than many of its northern counterparts, which means staying longer, reading slower and ordering that extra cortado without guilt.
But as I moved beyond the logistics, what really drew me in was Madrid’s unexpected literary depth…
The Literary Heart of Spain
Madrid doesn’t just appear in literature, it is literature.
Just take a walk through the Barrio de las Letras, the “Literary Quarter,” and you’ll find yourself pausing mid-step to read a line of poetry literally written into the street.
Or stop for coffee at Café Comercial and Café Gijón, two of the city’s most storied gathering places for writers, philosophers and bohemians.
And how about the Biblioteca Nacional de España, founded in 1711? This institution is home to one of the largest book collections in the world.
Even older than the library is the Casa Museo de Lope de Vega, the playwright’s former home, which has been lovingly preserved as a window into the city’s literary past.
And then there are the bookshops… so many bookshops! From La Cuesta de Moyano, an open-air book market where blue stalls overflow with novels (and which celebrates its 100th birthday this year), to La Casquería, where books are sold by the weight in a former butcher’s stall, there’s a story on every corner.
Can you see how the retreat itinerary began to write itself?
Reading Between the Lines
Spain’s literary legacy is rich and complicated.
For centuries, it produced some of Europe’s most brilliant voices; from Cervantes’ Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel, to Federico García Lorca’s haunting poetry.
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But it’s also a country whose writers have wrestled with censorship and exile, particularly under Franco’s dictatorship, when many authors were silenced or forced abroad.
To read Spanish literature is to trace the country’s complex history.
Yet, literature in Madrid isn’t confined to the past.
The city’s indie bookstores and creative festivals have cultivated a vibrant, bilingual literary scene that’s accessible to non-Spanish-speaking visitors and residents (sadly, even after years of study, my Spanish is still painfully Spanglish).
I’m particularly excited to dive into Desperate Literature’s Eleven Stories, a collection of shortlisted entries for their short fiction prize (the launch party neatly coincides with our retreat).
There’s also the Eñe Festival each November, which brings together authors, poets and readers for a citywide celebration of words.
And, of course, The Madrid Review, a literary magazine with a finger on the pulse of up-and-coming writers in the capital and beyond.
Our Story
The Nomad Book Club Madrid Literary Retreat took place from 21–24 November 2025, and we had the best time!
More than a reading holiday: this was an immersion (plus tapas).
Between literary walks, bookshop safaris and long dinners discussing the novels on our Madrid Reading List and beyond, there were poetry workshops, museum visits and even some sleepy book siestas.
(To plan your own bookshop crawl, check out this list of the best bookstores in Madrid for English books.)
I couldn’t have asked for a more lovely group for our inaugural retreat and can’t wait for us all to meet up again in the next destination!
And if your heart beats a little faster at the thought of wandering the same streets as great writers, sipping vermouth with fellow book lovers and perusing gorgeous bookstores together, then maybe our next literary retreat is calling you too.
And in the meantime, join our Nomad Book Club community online!
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