Paris1972-Versailles2003

So, therefore, after posting about the monuments and sights of my beloved Madrid will go into the places of shopping and restaurant with a series Restaurant: XXX Madrid or Shopping: XXX Madrid. Hope you enjoy them and do try them when visiting Madrid the food and shopping is an experience to behold in lovely Madrid. For lack of creativity ,I will copy this first paragraph into the subsequents posts! ::)

I have written a post on El Corte Inglés so try not to repeat just posting here with new pictures from 2019.  My previous blog post on El Corte Inglés

The department stores El Corte Inglés was a small shop on Calle Preciados with a corner to Calle del Carmen and Calle de Rompelanzas dedicated to tailoring and clothing for children that had been founded in 1890. It has been our favorite shopping store in Madrid since 1995, and we do visit every time in the city as this 2019.

Official El Corte Inglés at Preciados

Now our all time favorite since 1971 to 1995 was Galerias Preciados another dept store chain founded in 1943. The group took its name from Calle Preciados , where the first store was located, founded by Pepín Fernández on his return from Cuba in 1934. To found it he was inspired by the style of the El Encanto (and my older family shop there too!!! In turn model after the Galeries Lafayette of Paris ) in Havana. The inauguration took place in 1943, and later more centers were opened in other cities in Spain. Unfortunately, in 1995, all the chain’s stores were closed,and during that same year the absorption of Galerias Preciado by the El Corte Inglés (English cut) was carried out, which remodeled and maintained the 22 establishments acquired then at Galerias. The original building on Calle Preciados has been home to a commercial center of the French chain Fnac since 1993 and several offices (and we shop here too as in France).

We have also shop at the El Corte Inglés at Calle Princesa and Calle Goya. Pictures of each

Fnac (Fédération Nationale d’Achats des Cadres); in Spanish Federación Nacional de Compras de los Ejecutivos is a French company, a subsidiary of Groupe Fnac Darty, specializing in the sale of electronic items, computers, photographic articles, books, music and video. It also offers Internet sales and is one of the pioneer groups in this format in their country of origin.

Official Fnac Callao

Fnac, since the inauguration of its first headquarters on Calle Preciados, reserves in several of its buildings a space called Forum, where literary events, workshops, concerts, talks and audiovisual projection are held, among others. The Callao building, which has access by Calle Preciados, the busiest commercial street in Spain and third in Europe, is a building dating from the 1940’s. It has 11,630 square meters of surface distributed over eleven floors. with Fnac, the flagship that this group has since 1994 . There is a remodelling programmed where it will be reduce its space and will occupy five floors compared to the current nine. The remodelling will be only on the inside as the outside features will remain on the building.

And they are in the tourist office of Madrid too!!

Tourist office of Madrid on El Corte Inglés Preciados

Tourist office of Madrid on Fnac Callao

There are many wonderful stores all over Madrid, and we have patronise a lot over the years, however, for a quick shopping of everything the El Corte Inglés and Fnac can’t be beaten. Enjoy the happy shopping in my beloved Madrid.

And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all!!!