LiquidLama Travel, Food, Wine & Drinks
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Free tour
Every city trip you do should start by taking a free tour. The concept of a free tour is simple: you enjoy a free guided tour and at the end you reward the guide by what you think is fair. Working as such makes the tour guides really enthusiastic, funny and knowledgeable. A good free tour regularly takes around 3 hours (including a small 20 minutes break) and shows you the city’s most important sights and landmarks. After a free tour, you should more or less be capable of navigating through the city without getting lost.
Free tours start from different places in the city at different times of the day. In Madrid most free walking tours start at Plaza Mayor. My tip is to consult Trip Advisor and search for the free tour with the best reviews. Consult the company’s website to learn about the starting hours. When arriving at the meeting spot you won’t miss the guides as they are always holding a big colorful umbrella high in the air. Making reservations for the free tours is not necessary. All you need to do is being at the right place at the right time.
We did the free tour with Sandemans New Europe, a company which organizes free tours in many major cities in Europe. I did many tours with them already, also this time they surprised me with the quality of the guided tour & the guides. I especially want to thank our guide Joaquin for the great tour provided.
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Visit the Sol & Huertas neighborhood
Sol & Huertas neighborhoods form the center of Madrid, here you’ll find crowded street, touristic highlights, large shopping areas; and if you look closely you might even discover a bit from the old and historical Madrid.
Puerta Del Sol is the actual city center since the “Kilometro Cero” (point zero) is to be found here, distances to other cities are measured starting from this exact spot. Your exploration of the city should also start here. Starting from Sol, you can easily discover all shops, streets and other highlights between Gran Via (North), Banco De Espana (East), Calle Atocha (South) and Plaza Mayor (West). Take at least a day to discover everything!
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Visit the La Latina neighborhood
La Latina is one of the oldest neighborhoods of Madrid, it has been part of the inner city since the 9th century. Streets are small, squares are large: the regular street patterns of a Middle-age city; the buildings however date back to the 19th century. Under the shade of the Basilica Francisco El Grande and La Iglesia de San Andres you find countless great tapas bars, restaurants, cocktail bars and much more. Just wander through the streets; I bet you’ll like it!
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Enjoy food & drinks as much as possible
Madrid is a food Walhalla, every day you should take the time to enjoy great food. Don’t you dare to book a hotel including breakfast and dinner; it would really be a shame if you’d miss out on the great variety of restaurants, tapa’s bars, eateries and food markets the city has to offer. While the breakfasts are simple (but very tasteful), the variety of snacks and dishes for lunch and dinner are endless.
Some tips for great food & drinks:
- Read my blog post on great restaurants in the city.
- Read my blog post on great places to take breakfast.
- Visit the Mercado de San Miguel food market. Although the San Miguel market is worth visiting and offers tasteful (but rather expensive) food, it’s a place which attracts many tourists. Mercado de la Cebada, Mercado de San Anton & Mercado de san Ildefonso are great alternatives if you prefer to go more local.
- Enjoy the Iberico Ham (Jamón ibérico). Jamon is everywhere is Madrid, the hams are sold at every corner of the street. There’s even Jamon museums; but those museums are actually just shops.
- Buy self-made chips. Yep, they, are selling fresh chips in Madrid. A fine and inexpensive snack if you don’t have the time for a long lunch.
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Museums
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Madrid is a city of culture, it houses important museums such as Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza. You need at least a day per museum if you want to visit them properly, but if you are not too much into art but don’t want to miss out anyways, 2 hours per museum should suffice.
Although the three museums are relatively close to each other, I recommend to only visit a single museum a day; you don’t want that art-overdose, right?
Each of the three major museums has their own style, if you don’t have the time to visit them all; you are about to make some difficult choices. Here’s what you find in each museum:
- Prado: Far out the biggest museum of the three. There’s more than 6.000 paintings and sculptures. You will find Flemish, Spanish and Italian- masters like Rubens, Bosch, Rembrandt & El Greco.
- Reina Sofia: Paintings of the 19th & 20th Big names are Miro, Dali & Picasso.
- Thyssen-Bornemisza: The museum started as a private collection. There’s a wide range of different styles and trends (Flemish Baroque to Mondriaan & Dali). My recommendation is to start your tour on the second floor in order to see all paintings in chronological order.
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El Retiro (Parque del Buen Retiro)
A beautiful 1.4 km² city park at the east side ofthe city center. The park is very close to the museum district and can be well combined with a visit to any of the three major museums.
The park is the perfect escape from the busy center for both locals and tourists. Especially on week days the park is very quiet, during the weekends many artists and fortune tellers are trying to amuse the public.
Besides beautiful gardens, El Retiro also offers some great architecture. Palacio De Cristal & Palacio de Velázquez are not really worth visiting; but you should definitely enjoy the architecture from the outside.
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Real Madrid Stadium: Estadio Santiago Bernabéu
Indeed, a football stadium. But not just any football stadium. Real Madrid is one of the biggest and most successful football clubs of the world. Their stadium, up in the north of the city, very well represents the fame and popularity of Real Madrid. At match days, more than 80,000 people can enjoy a match of the “The royal team”.
Visiting the stadium is a must, especially for people who are at least a little bit into football and sports in general. Also people not really thrilled by sports will find it interesting to visit the stadium (my girlfriend enjoyed the visit and she’s not at all interested in sports). The stadium tour (duration of approximate 2 hours) takes you around the pitch, dugouts, stands, dressing rooms and up to the highest parts of the stadium. The museum explaining about Real Madrid’s history is very modern and interactive. The great thing is that you can do the tour at your own pace, no need to listen to boring tour guides!
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A day to Toledo
If you have the time, visit the nearby city of Toledo, the inner city is fully UNESCO World Heritage protected and well worth visiting for a day. You reach Toledo within the hour from Madrid by train or tourist bus.
Read the full blog post on Toledo here.
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Visit El Rastro
El Rastro is the most popular open air flea market in Madrid, it’s also the biggest flea market I’ve ever seen. It is held every Sunday and public holidays during the year and is located along Plaza de Cascorro and Ribera de Curtidores, between Calle Embajadores and the Ronda de Toledo (just south of La Latina metro station).
I don’t especially recommend you buying anything here, but you should certainly visit the market when you are spending a Sunday in the city. Walking through the endless narrow streets full of people whilst looking at all the trinkets, antiques and other items is really enjoyable; if you don’t mind crowded places that is.
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Plaza Mayor
Beautiful square in the center of the city. In earlier days, bull fights where organized at this square while people were cheering from the 437 balconies.
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Palacio real
Palacio real is not an old medieval Alcazar palace like you find them in the south of Spain. Such a castle used to be there, but it burned down in the 18th century. One of the kings rebuilt the castle in the same style as the Versaille castle in France during the late 18th century.
The palace is very much alike to any other palace you can visit across Europe. Not really worth the money, nor the time visiting. But it sure is worth walking by the palace and visiting the palace’s park, which is free to visit.
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Basilica de San Fransicso El Grande
Beautiful basilica relatively close to the Palacio Real and the cathedral. If you must choose, I would recommend visiting the basilica instead of the cathedral.
