☘️ What's on in Madrid: March 13

It's Friday the 13th and the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. Get ready for mayhem.

Madrid | Issue #136

🇪🇸 The Bubble is Spain's #1 English-language, bestselling newsletter. We offer paid subscriptions, and we’d be thrilled to have your support!

Become a paid or free subscriber

Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend

It’s Friday (the 13th) again!

And it feels like the perfect day to kick off a weekend that already looks slightly surreal.

Madrid is turning green because of St. Patrick’s, and it’s also glowing thanks to a citywide light festival. Add a bit of high drama with a play that’s packed with murder and family secrets, and you basically have the ingredients of a very respectable horror movie plot. (Not as good as the Friday the 13th movies, but getting there).
It’s the kind of weekend where you might begin admiring a contemporary art installation and somehow end up drinking Guinness with strangers dressed like leprechauns at 2 a.m.

Happy weekend!

1. 🇮🇪 St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Irish Week: Gran Vía turns green

Kiss me, I’m Irish. Madrid may be far from Dublin and have a relatively small Irish community, but since 2023, every March, the city suddenly discovers its inner Celtic spirit.

St. Patrick’s Week has become a surprisingly big event in the capital in recent years, celebrating Ireland’s culture and its historical ties to Spain’s own Celtic roots. (We say surprisingly, because when the city was approached by a bunch of ~~crazies~~ visionaries with the idea, the first response was a resounding “huh?”)
The festivities run from March 10 to 17 and include a full lineup of concerts, dance performances, literature events, film screenings, and cultural activities scattered across the city.
There is tons of stuff going on (download the official program here). The Gran Vía metro station is transformed into the “Green Vía,” where musicians and dancers from University College Dublin perform daily busking-style shows throughout the week.
Elsewhere in the city, there are Irish-themed talks, literary events, film screenings and even poetry readings marking the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
Of course, the real highlight is the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which has quickly become one of the city’s most colorful street celebrations. The parade, now in its fourth edition, is spearheaded by Galician musician Bras Rodrigo, along with countless bagpipers, aim to bring a bit of Dublin-style spectacle to Madrid.

The procession kicks off at the Metropolis Building, marching down Gran Vía toward Plaza de España with bagpipers, dancers, performers, sports groups, and plenty of people dressed in green.

🖥️ What: St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Ireland Week

📍 Where: Parade along Gran Vía (Metropolis Building to Plaza de España)

📅 When: Parade on March 14 at 5 p.m. (Ireland Week events run through March 17)

🎟 Tickets: Free admission

2.💡 LuzMadrid is back to turn the city into art

Let there be light. Madrid is damn beautiful at night, so why not turn it up to 11? That’s the idea behind LuzMadrid, the international light festival that returns for its third edition, transforming parts of the city into a glowing open-air ~~strip club~~ gallery.

Created in 2021 to celebrate the UNESCO designation of the Paisaje de la Luz (the cultural landscape that includes the Prado Museum, Retiro, and Paseo del Prado), the festival invites artists from around the world to use light as their medium, turning plazas, monuments, and façades into temporary works of art.
This year’s edition features 15 installations by national and international artists, scattered across different locations, encouraging visitors to wander through the city (check the official program here).
The result is a city-wide night walk where buildings suddenly glow, installations pulse with color, and familiar landmarks look like they’ve been quietly upgraded with a sci-fi filter. And yes, it will look great on your Instagram stories. Your crush might even react to it with a 👏🏻 (the most disappointing of reactions, but you can’t win ’em all).

If you’ve ever wanted an excuse to wander Madrid after dark that doesn’t make it sound like you’re cruising, this is probably it.

🖥️ What: LuzMadrid International Light Festival

📍 Where: Various locations across central Madrid (see official site)

📅 When: Through March 14

🎟 Tickets: Free admission

3.👗 Listen up, cool kids: Madrid’s Fashion Week has already started

And you’re probably not invited. The city’s Spring Fashion Week season kicked off yesterday with one of the key events designed to bring Spanish fashion out of the runway and into the streets.

Now, before you run out the door with your phone in hand, this is not the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid (aka the country’s biggest fashion event). That’s actually next week.
This is OMODA Madrid es Moda (basically the warmup event), and instead of confining fashion to convention halls and icy looks from Anna Wintour-wannabes, the event transforms the city itself into a stage, with shows, presentations, and installations across the capital.
Focused on promoting Spanish designer fashion, the event features 32 designers (like Dominnico, Carlota Barrera, Roberto Verino, and Paloma Suárez) and brands showcasing their work through a packed program of 18 runway shows and performances, eight exhibition-style presentations, and several public events and talks designed to connect designers, industry professionals, and the ~~plebs~~ public.

Instead of traditional catwalk venues, designers present their collections in places that highlight Madrid’s architecture and urban spaces, allowing ~~peasants~~ the public to experience fashion more directly.

🖥️ What: OMODA Madrid es Moda

📍 Where: Various venues across Madrid

📅 When: Through March 17

🎟 Tickets start at: Many events are free, some require invitation (check website)

4. 🎭 A classic Spanish drama returns to the stage with Malquerida

Attention fans of the 1995 movie starring Keanu Reeves, “A Walk in the Clouds”, this one is for you! If you’re in the mood for high drama, forbidden passions, and the kind of rural intrigue that defined early 20th-century Spanish theater, then you better head over to the Teatro Español.

La Malquerida, one of the most famous plays by Nobel Prize–winning playwright Jacinto Benavente, is back on stage in a new adaptation directed by Natalia Menéndez and Juan Carlos Rubio.
First premiered in 1913, the story unfolds in a country estate where a wedding celebration turns into tragedy when the groom is mysteriously murdered. Suspicion spreads across the village, old rivalries resurface, and a web of secrets begins to unravel. It’s basically the plot of The Hangover, except the groom dies.
Leading the cast is veteran Spanish actress Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (omg she was Keanu’s love interest in the movie!!!), who plays Raimunda, a widow determined to uncover the truth behind the crime, even if doing so exposes uncomfortable realities about her own family.

The play explores topics that were controversial when it premiered — jealousy, desire, violence, and forbidden love, all things that are totally non-controversial anymore because who gives a fuck.

Anyway, this new production leans into those tensions, offering a modern staging of one of the most iconic works of Spanish theater.

🖥️ What: Malquerida

📍 Where: Teatro Español, Calle del Príncipe 25, Plaza Santa Ana, Madrid

📅 When: Through April 26 (Tuesday to Sunday)

🎟 Tickets start at €6