5 Days in Madrid

Madrid starts its day with chocolate con churros: hot chocolate so thick it's closer to a pudding, and sticks of fried dough to dip in it. Chocolatería San Ginés has been serving little else since 1894, in a covered passage beside the church of San Ginés, five minutes west of Puerta del Sol.

It's on every tourist list, so there's often a queue, and the churros are a notch above average rather than a revelation. Go at about 9 am on a weekday for the shortest wait.

Walk ten minutes west along Calle de Bailén to the Royal Palace. It stands on the site of the old Habsburg Alcázar, which burned down in 1734, and the new building took about three decades to finish, with the Italian Filippo Juvara drawing the first plans and Francesco Sabatini completing the job. It has more than 3,000 rooms. It's the king's official residence, but the royal family doesn't live here (they live at the Zarzuela Palace outside the city), and the palace is used for state ceremonies.

The visit is a long walk through gilded rooms. Don't skip the Throne Room, with its ceiling by Tiepolo. Without a guide the palace blurs after an hour, so pick a few rooms rather than trying to see everything.

The cathedral stands directly across the square from the palace, and it's a building that took forever. Almudena Cathedral was started in 1883 and wasn't consecrated, by Pope John Paul II, until 1993.

Go in for twenty minutes, then walk around the palace to the Plaza de Oriente, a formal square with statues of Spanish kings, to sit before lunch.

Cocido madrileño is the dish of the city: a stew of chickpeas, potatoes, cabbage, chorizo, morcilla, pork and beef that's served in two or three separate rounds. First comes the broth with noodles (sopa), then the chickpeas and vegetables, then the meats on a platter. It's thought to descend from the Sephardic Jewish adafina, and it's a winter dish. If it's 28°C outside, skip it.

Taberna La Bola, a ten-minute walk north of the palace on Calle de la Bola, says it has served cocido since 1870, cooked in individual clay pots over charcoal, and the family is the founder's descendants. Book ahead, because it fills at lunch. Sobrino de Botín, which Guinness lists as the world's oldest restaurant, claims 1725 as its founding date, but that's a legend: it opened in 1865 as a pastry shop.

This is the strangest monument in Madrid: a small Egyptian temple in a park next to Plaza de España. It was built in the early 2nd century BC south of Aswan, in Nubia. When the Aswan Dam threatened to flood the area, Egypt gave it to Spain in 1968 as thanks for helping save the monuments of Nubia, and it was taken apart and rebuilt stone by stone in the Parque de la Montaña between 1970 and 1972.

Come for the light. The temple stands by a reflecting pool on a hill that looks west, and at sunset the sky turns orange behind its gateways. After the clock change on 25 October the sun sets at around 6 pm. Inside, entry is free but limited to 30 people and 30 minutes, so book on the city's site, and note that the temple is closed on Mondays.

Flamenco was born in Andalusia, and Seville and Granada are where you'll find it in its home setting. But Madrid has its tablaos too, venues named for the wooden stage, and the best of them are serious about it. Corral de la Morería on Calle de la Morería, a short walk from the palace, opened in 1956 and celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2026. Its restaurant has held a Michelin star since 2018.

Expect a staged show, not a spontaneous night in a bar, with the dancers close enough to hear their heels. Seats are limited, so book on the venue's own site and compare the show-with-a-drink option against the dinner package, which costs much more.

From the station take a city bus (5, 22, 61 or 62) up to Plaza de Zocodover, about 1.60 EUR paid to the driver. The first stop is a small brick mosque on the way, which tells you what kind of city this was.

The Cristo de la Luz was built in 999, as the inscription on its facade says, in the time of the Caliphate of Córdoba, and of Toledo's ten mosques it's the best preserved. A church apse was added in the 12th century, after the Christian conquest, so one small building shows Muslim and Christian Toledo at once.

Walk down from Zocodover, the main square, into the tangle of lanes that leads to the cathedral. Work began in 1226 under King Ferdinand III, the nave vaults weren't closed until 1493, and it's built of white stone from the nearby Olihuelas quarries. It's the seat of Spain's primate archbishop, and the inside is dark, huge and richly furnished.

The ticket route takes in the main chapel, the choir, the sacristy with its picture gallery, the chapter house and the cloister. The sacristy is the highlight, with paintings including El Greco's El Expolio.

Toledo's greatest painting is in a small church of its own. The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, painted by El Greco in 1586 for the parish priest of Santo Tomé, hangs over the count's tomb, where it's been ever since. The scene is the legend that Saint Stephen and Saint Augustine came down from heaven to lay the count in his grave, and El Greco filled the lower half with portraits of the noblemen of Toledo, who stand in their black clothes and white ruffs and look straight out at you.

El Greco was born in Crete, trained in Venice and settled in Toledo, and this is the painting that explains why. Everything about it is stretched, glowing and a little unreal. You see it from the back of the chapel, so go early, before the tour groups.

Lunch in Toledo means carcamusas, a pork stew with tomato and peas that's the town's most typical bar dish, or game: partridge is the local classic. Bar Ludeña is a known place for carcamusas and Mesón de la Orza for partridge, which isn't cheap. Check hours before you go, because many small places close in the afternoon.

Finish with mazapán de Toledo, the almond marzipan that has a protected geographical indication. Confitería Santo Tomé, next to the church, is the best-known maker.

The western end of town was the Jewish quarter. Santa María la Blanca was built in 1180 as a synagogue and used as one for 211 years, until the pogrom of 1391 turned it into a church. It's owned by the Church today but has no services. A few minutes away the Tránsito synagogue is a 14th-century building paid for by Samuel ha-Leví, under King Peter I.

The big monument at the end of the street is the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes. Queen Isabella ordered it as a royal tomb after the Battle of Toro and the birth of Prince Juan, in Isabelline Gothic style. In the end she and Ferdinand were buried in Granada, which you can see in our Granada plan.

The last walk is down to the river. The Puente de San Martín is a medieval stone bridge on the western edge of town, high over the Tagus. From the bridge you see the hill, the cathedral tower and the Alcázar fortress at the top, which houses the army museum.

For the postcard view of the whole city, the Mirador del Valle is on the opposite bank of the Tagus, too far to walk comfortably, so take a taxi if you have time.

The Prado was founded in 1819 as a museum of painting and sculpture, and it holds the royal collections, which means centuries of kings who loved and bought great art. The most extensively represented artist is Goya, with Velázquez, El Greco, Titian and Rubens close behind, plus Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Don't try to see everything. Pick a short route: Velázquez, whose Las Meninas is the museum's best-known painting; Goya, including the dark late works known as the Black Paintings; Bosch; and El Greco.

Lunch is at 2 pm in Madrid, and the market in Lavapiés is a ten-minute walk from the Prado. Mercado de Antón Martín is a neighborhood market with fishmongers and greengrocers downstairs and a row of small bars and kitchens among them, which makes it a far better meal than the famous Mercado de San Miguel. On a Sunday, the Mercado de San Fernando in Lavapiés is the alternative, with craft beer and food from many countries.

Order a few small plates at the counter, a caña (a small draft beer) or a vermouth, and eat standing up among the shoppers. The market closes on Sundays and early on Saturdays.

Come back along the Paseo del Prado to the Thyssen-Bornemisza, which opened in 1992 in the Villahermosa Palace. The collection came from a private family, and in June 1993 Spain bought 775 pieces of it for 350 million dollars, well below its estimated market value.

What makes it a good counterpart to the Prado is the range: Italian Gothic painting from the 13th century on, a nearly complete set of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists (Manet, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Gauguin), a rare set of American painting for Europe, then German Expressionism, Surrealism and Pop Art. It's the most manageable of the three, a chronological walk of about two hours, and also the stop to cut on a two-museum day.

Between the Thyssen and the evening hours at the Reina Sofía, walk the Paseo del Prado. The long boulevard is part of the 2021 UNESCO listing together with the Retiro, the Landscape of Light, and the stretch from the Thyssen to the Plaza de Cibeles is its grand part.

At Cibeles, the fountain of the goddess in her chariot is where Real Madrid fans gather to celebrate titles. This is a pause, not a sight: sit on a bench, have a coffee and look at the buildings before going back for Guernica.

The Reina Sofía is housed in the old General Hospital, an 18th-century building ordered by Charles III, with a glass-and-steel extension by Jean Nouvel that opened in 2005. The reason most people come is Picasso's Guernica, painted in Paris in response to the bombing of the Basque town of Gernika on 26 April 1937 and shown at the Spanish pavilion at that year's Paris World Fair.

The painting only arrived in Spain in 1981. It was shown first at the Casón del Buen Retiro and moved to the Reina Sofía in 1992. Stand in front of it for a while: it's much bigger than any photo suggests, and it's in black, white and grey. The rest of the museum has strong Dalí and Miró collections.

Dinner is a few blocks away in the Barrio de las Letras, the quarter of the golden-age writers, where the streets still carry their names. Casa Alberto on Calle de las Huertas opened in 1827, makes its own vermut on tap, and has an old wood-and-onyx bar. Its specialties are oxtail stew and callos a la madrileña.

Callos is tripe stewed slowly with chorizo, morcilla and paprika until it's rich, sticky and deeply savory. It's an acquired taste, but it's a true Madrid classic. If tripe isn't for you, the oxtail is the safer choice.

You see it as soon as you arrive: the aqueduct is a granite wall of more than 160 arches in two tiers, up to 28 meters high, that strides across the Plaza del Azoguejo. The Romans built it in the early 2nd century AD, with granite blocks set without any mortar, to carry water about 17 km from the Fuenfría spring into the city. Cars drove between its arches until 1992, when a restoration began that took nearly eight years.

Look from both sides. The best view is from the Postigo del Consuelo viewpoint above the square, since you can't walk on top of it. There's little to do except look, and that's enough.

Climb into the old town from the aqueduct to the Plaza Mayor. The big building on its edge is the cathedral, the Santa Iglesia Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción y de San Frutos, a Gothic church with a tall nave.

Spend an hour here: have a coffee on the square, go in the cathedral if you like, and wander. The old Jewish quarter and the Romanesque churches are on the lanes behind.

Segovia's signature dish is cochinillo asado, a suckling pig roasted in a wood-fired oven until the skin is as crisp as glass and the meat can be cut with a spoon. The best-known place to try it is Mesón de Cándido, in the Plaza del Azoguejo right under the aqueduct. The inn opened as the Mesón del Azoguejo in 1786, and Cándido López, who took over in 1931, made the dish famous by cutting the pig with the edge of a plate to show how tender it was. There's a statue of him doing it at the roundabout on the way into town.

Other local dishes are roast lamb, judiones de La Granja (giant white beans), garlic soup and ponche segoviano, a cake of sponge, custard and marzipan. Share a pig and order the cake for dessert. It's a heavy lunch, so take a walk after it.

The Alcázar sits on a rock at the western tip of the old town, a pointed-tower silhouette that looks like the castle in a children's story book. It was a royal residence, then a military academy for artillery officers, and today it's a palace museum.

The visit takes about 40 to 45 minutes for the palace and museum, plus up to 25 minutes in the Tower of Juan II. Tickets with the tower sell out on busy days, so book on the Alcázar's website. The busiest time is 11 am to 1:30 pm, so lunch first is a good plan.

Finish with the city's best view, which is outside its walls. From the Alcázar walk down through the Arco de Santiago and across the Eresma river to the church of the Vera Cruz, a spot Segovia's own tourism pages single out for its view of the whole old town. The walk takes about half an hour, with a climb on the way back.

In winter the light goes by about 6 pm, so don't leave this too late. Afterwards go back to the aqueduct for a last look and take bus 11 to Guiomar, or the coach from the bus station, to Madrid.

El Rastro is Madrid's flea market, held every Sunday and public holiday from 9 am to 3 pm. It starts at the Plaza de Cascorro and runs downhill along the Ribera de Curtidores toward the Ronda de Toledo, with stalls spilling into the side streets of La Latina and Embajadores. Antique shops in the area open on Sundays too.

Go to walk, not to shop. It's half flea market, half cheap clothes and leather, and the main street is packed from 11 am to 2 pm, so go at about 9:30 or 10 am. The side streets are where you find the books, old coins and collectors' stalls. Bring cash and small change, because many stalls don't take cards.

After the market, walk up to Calle de la Cava Baja, the street where Madrid goes for Sunday tapas. The tradition is a vermut and a few small plates in one bar, then the next. A media ración is half a plate and a ración a full one.

The dish to try here is huevos rotos: fried potatoes with fried eggs on top and ham, broken up at the table so the yolk runs through. Casa Lucio at Cava Baja 35 is the restaurant most associated with it, and it's a restaurant, not a bar, so book. Otherwise just follow the crowd. The best bar is the one with people standing outside.

From La Latina it's a five-minute walk to the Plaza Mayor, built between 1580 and 1619 under Philip III. It's a closed rectangle of 129 by 94 meters, with 237 balconies looking onto it, reached by arches from the surrounding streets. Today it's cafés, souvenir stands and a lot of tourists.

The square is for a look and a coffee. For bocadillo de calamares, the fried squid sandwich that is the city's unofficial snack, go to Calle de Botoneras in the southeast corner: Cervecería La Campana at number 6 is the classic, with the sandwich around 4 EUR, and Bar La Ideal at number 4 is next door. Eat standing, with a little lemon. Skip the Mercado de San Miguel, which opened in 1916 and was reborn as a gastronomic market in 2009. It's handsome and tourist-priced, so go in for a look or one glass of vermouth, not for lunch.

The Puerta del Sol is the center of Madrid and of Spain: the Km 0 plaque in front of the old post office is where the country's radial road network starts. The clock on the same building is the one that decides when Spaniards eat the twelve grapes for luck at New Year, a tradition broadcast live since 1962.

Honestly it's a crowded crossroads with a lot of shopping, so see it in ten minutes. The bear and strawberry tree statue, the city's emblem, is a meeting spot. Just off the square on Calle de Tetuán, Casa Labra has been serving fried cod croquettes and fritters since 1860, and the Spanish Socialist Party is said to have been founded there in 1879. It's a quick, cheap, standing-room bar.

Walk east along Calle de Alcalá past the Cibeles fountain to the Retiro. The park began as the gardens of Philip IV's Buen Retiro royal retreat in 1629, Charles III opened it to the public in 1767 with rules, and since 1868 it's been a municipal park. It covers 118 hectares, and in July 2021 UNESCO made it, together with the Paseo del Prado, a World Heritage Site called the Landscape of Light.

Do four things: rent a rowboat on the Estanque Grande, beside the Monument to Alfonso XII; walk through the rose garden, the Rosaleda; see the Fallen Angel fountain, a statue of the devil falling from heaven that's often called a rare public monument to Lucifer; and look at the Palacio de Cristal, the glass pavilion built in 1887 for plants from the Philippines. At last check it was closed for works, but it's worth seeing from outside.

Gran Vía is the avenue that Madrid built to look modern. Work began on 4 April 1910, and the street is 1.3 km long, running from Calle de Alcalá to Plaza de España in three stages. It's a parade of early 20th-century styles: the Metrópolis building (1911) at its start, the Telefónica building at number 28 (built 1926-29, the tallest in Europe in its day), and the cinemas and hotels in between.

Walk it from east to west at dusk, when the buildings light up. The shops are mostly international chains, so the street is for looking up.

Malasaña, just north of Gran Vía, takes its name from Manuela Malasaña, a 15-year-old girl executed by French troops after the Dos de Mayo uprising of 1808. Its heart is the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, and in the late 1970s and 1980s it was the center of the movida, the creative explosion that followed Franco's death. Today it's old bars, vintage shops and young crowds.

Start with a vermouth at the Bodega de la Ardosa on Calle Colón, open since 1892, with a tiled front and a name for its tap vermouth and potato omelet. It's packed from 8 to 10 pm and takes no reservations. Then go east across Calle de Fuencarral to Chueca around the Plaza de Chueca, Madrid's gay neighborhood, lively and welcoming to everyone. Madrid goes out late: a caña at 11 pm is early.