Madrid

2,472 Views | 19 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by AGC
amanda04
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AG
Anyone been there recently and can offer any tips or must see locations?

We found a great flight price and are headed there Spring Break for a Monday-Friday. Two adults, no kids and we'll be renting a car. TIA.
Apache
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AG
Royal Palace & adjacent cathedral
Prado Museum, Thyssen, Reina Sofia
Bien retiro Park
Plaza Mayor
Plaza del Sol
El Escorial
Flamenco show at Casa patas

Madrid is truly doable in 3 days. I recommend choosing from the following:
Day trips to Segovia & Toledo
If you're feeling real adventurous take the 4 hour bus ride to Grenada

Also I don't see the need to rent a car, Madrid has a great metro systen
Lucky Jack Aubrey
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AG
Second all of these and add

Santiago Bernabeu Stadium has a good tour and museum
The Naval Museum is excellent
Mercado San Miguel
eiggA2002
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AG
Mercado San Miguel.....and then the rest of the stuff previously mentioned.
notheranymore
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If you can do only one day trip I personally like Segovia more than Toledo but both are lovely.
busdriver88
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AG
Don't remember where it was, but Madrid had the best Sangria ever
There may not be time to do the job right, but there is always time to do the job over!!
amanda04
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AG
Thanks for the list so far! And we are renting a car because we plan to visit outside of Madrid to visit wineries and an olive oil orchard/farm/company.

Any food recommendations? We've read about Sobrino de Botn, which is the oldest restaurant in the world, but I am wondering how great the food quality is compared to other restaurants in town.
SkiMo
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Headed there this June and very excited to check out the city. I hear it's great. I have watched a lot of videos on YouTube. I recommend following this YouTube channel and watching some videos on places to check out, tapas bars to go to, their culture, typical lunch and dinner times and what not. He owns a company called Devour Tours which I might end up doing. Seems fun to have a local professional take you and a small group of other people from around the world to different tapas bars. They even do guided tours of the museums.

YouTube Channel link

Devour Tours link

If you wanna go tapas bar hopping solo then I hear the street Cava Baja is fun. Lots of tapas, bars, and energy. But early in the week many will be closed at night.
The Silverback
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We stayed at the ME Madrid Reina Victoria....great hotel and even better location. Walking distance to Parque de Retiro and Mercado de San Miguel.

The plaza the hotel is in is lined with Tapas restaurants and bars. Awesome vibe around town, great food, cheap wine and friendly people. One of my favorite places.
amanda04
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Thanks for the hotel rec, Silverback! It looks like a great place!

SkiMo, we have booked the Huertas Neighborhood food tour through Devour so I'll let you know how that is! I'll be watching his YouTube channel until we leave.
SkiMo
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amanda04 said:

Thanks for the hotel rec, Silverback! It looks like a great place!

SkiMo, we have booked the Huertas Neighborhood food tour through Devour so I'll let you know how that is! I'll be watching his YouTube channel until we leave.
Suhweet! Guess I'm not the only one who does lots of research! Please let me know how the tour is and if it's worth it. Have fun!
Texaggie7nine
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We rented a car and drove from Malaga, Granada, Rhonda, Cadiz, Jerez, Seville, Caceres, Salamanca, Segovia, Madrid over 3 weeks.

Driving isn't too bad, but just remember, pedestrians trump all and don't drive into old town areas of small towns unless you like gray hair. Watch out for red lights to stop for pedestrians while turning on a green light at the intersection. Also pay attention to color coded street parking. We got a parking ticket thinking it was free. Also be ready to fall in love with roundabouts if you haven't driven in europe before.

Segovia day trip is worth but it's a great overnight stay where you can walk the town at night Get some suckling pig if you go. And since you are driving, El Escorial is on the way to make a stop at. Parking is also super hard to find up in the old town of Segovia, we found a good hotel that had parking while there and just walked everywhere.

I regret not doing Toledo.

All the other recommendations in Madrid I agree with.

7nine
AGC
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The Silverback said:

We stayed at the ME Madrid Reina Victoria....great hotel and even better location. Walking distance to Parque de Retiro and Mercado de San Miguel.

The plaza the hotel is in is lined with Tapas restaurants and bars. Awesome vibe around town, great food, cheap wine and friendly people. One of my favorite places.


This hotel is in Plaza de Santa Ana which is a great spot. Also a rooftop bar right there if I remember correctly.

Someone mentioned a tour of the Bernabu. It also has a restaurant open for lunch some days that isn't bad. The stands fold down into a platform on the south end and they set up tables and chairs. Go to a game there if you like. Tickets on ticketmaster.es go on sale a few days before and you can print them from kiosks in the north side so you don't have to deal with scalpers. Bars on the south end are good for before games.

Best tortilla espanola at Rincon De Goya in the Salamanca barrio several blocks north of Retiro on Calle Goya. La Trainera has excellent seafood on Calle lagasca, not far from Rincon De Goya.
TriAg2010
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TTT

I recently realized that due to a booking mistake I've got an overnight layover at MAD coming home from a business trip. Landing at noon on Saturday, leaving noon on Sunday. Any recommendations for afternoon & evening?
Texaggie7nine
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You can take the train into town. I believe you can buy a 24 hour metro pass that works on trains and buses. Or if you dont mind spending a lot of money you can uber all the way from the airport.

Personally if it were me, I would get a hotel near Plaza Mayor, go to the Prado Museum or the Royal palace (whichever sounds more interesting to you), then go to san miguel market for dinner and try everything that looks good. Walk around Plaza Mayor, eat tapas and drink ect. Then get up early, grab a cafe and breakfast and take the train to the airport.


Install the Madrid Metro app on your phone. All listed places are easy to get to via train.

Make sure you eat as much jamon as you can.
7nine
amanda04
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We just returned from Madrid and it was incredibly amazing. Already ready to go back!

We managed to visit the Royal Palace, the Prado, the village of San Martin and two wineries there, an olive grove where the owners also produce their own olive oil, the town of Toledo, two walking tours, a flamenco show and lots of yummy food.

SkiMo, take the Huertas neighborhood food tour! It was three hours of non-stop eating and it hit spots that we hadn't managed to visit yet in our first 3 days. We also found a history walking tour through AirBnB experiences that was so-so. We had a lady from Boston who kept challenging our tour guide, so it made it less enjoyable. (For instance, we passed the oldest restaurant in the world, and she was trying to argue there was a place in Boston that was older. He told her it was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, and her daughter looked up the date of the Boston location, and she still tried to qualify it.) I think it would be more enjoyable with a different group of people.

TexAggie79, you were spot on with your description of driving. We managed fine but we found it to be easily navigable once you get used to people cutting across lanes in the roundabouts.

TriAggie, you can definitely manage without renting a car. Parking is about 32 euros a day, so find a train or take a cab/uber in. I would skip the Prado unless you are REALLY into art. The Royal Palace is quite gorgeous. Buy your tickets online if you want to skip the long line. There are guided tours but the audio tour suited me quite well. There's a street behind the Plaza Mayor that is "rustic" but each spot specializes in one specific dish. We stopped in the mushroom one and the mushrooms were stuffed with chorizo and smelled heavenly. If I had more time, I would go tapas hopping back there.

For me personally, I didn't find Mercado San Miguel that exciting. It was crazy crowded, even on a weekday, and looked like tapas we could get anywhere else. I'm glad we went in, just to say we saw it, but it didn't really do anything for me. Although we had planned out where we wanted to eat, we never seemed to be in the right spot when we were hungry, so we just opted to eat wherever was close by and looked good. It worked out every time, we never had a bad meal in Madrid. I would recommend finding somewhere with dining outside in a plaza. You'll pay more than if you were to stand at a bar, but being out in the plaza with everyone buzzing about is fun.

The one thing I would highly recommend is finishing your night with churros con chocolate at Los Artesanos 1902 Chocolate. The churros are always fresh and the hot chocolate is amazing. We found it much better than San Gines. We also stayed in the Hotel Fransisco right down the street and enjoyed it.
HollywoodBQ
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AG
Bump - looks like I might have to go to Madrid for work in a couple weeks.

Any idea about the weather in Madrid end of April / beginning of May?
Apache
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It will be perfect, great time of year to be there.
AGC
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Apache said:

It will be perfect, great time of year to be there.


Agree. I recall it being warm during the day but cool enough in the evening to want a jacket or sweater.
HollywoodBQ
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Thanks. I rarely bring a jacket with me when I travel unless I'm going someplace I know it's going to be cold (like NorCal and Lake Tahoe two months ago). The last time I went to Europe in May, it was unseasonably hot in Hungary and cold enough to need a jacket in Austria.

Just for kicks, I checked the Ibiza club schedule and most of them don't open until the end of May so, I assume it doesn't start warming up in Spain until June.
AGC
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HollywoodBQ said:

Thanks. I rarely bring a jacket with me when I travel unless I'm going someplace I know it's going to be cold (like NorCal and Lake Tahoe two months ago). The last time I went to Europe in May, it was unseasonably hot in Hungary and cold enough to need a jacket in Austria.

Just for kicks, I checked the Ibiza club schedule and most of them don't open until the end of May so, I assume it doesn't start warming up in Spain until June.


Sounds about right with June. I'm going off memory of easter week in 2009 when I was in Madrid from April to September. It does get really hot in the summer with no breeze but you will miss that.

I remember thinking how weird it was to have seasons, being from Texas and fall.
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