There is one room in Madrid worth crossing the city for, and it isn't in the Prado. The Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida is a small neoclassical chapel by the river where, in 1798, Goya painted the dome with a saint's miracle staged among the faces of ordinary Madrileños — washerwomen, beggars, children hanging over a painted balustrade. Goya is buried beneath it. Come early, before the day's first coach, and lie back on a bench to look up.
Next door stands an identical twin chapel, built in 1925 so Mass could go on without wearing the originals; most visitors never notice the sleight of hand. Then walk down to the Manzanares, freed from its motorway in 2011 and remade as the long riverside park of Madrid Río — the open water is the right exhale after the ceiling.
Turn upstream to the Puente de los Franceses, the railway bridge that was a Civil War front line, where willows soften the bank. Then climb the wooded slope to Príncipe Pío, the old terminus, and the metro home.
