We are about half way through our tour of Spain and our next stop was Madrid. Madrid is the largest city and the capital of Spain. People have been living in the Madrid region since the Stone Age, but its historical record begins in the 9th century, when the emir Muhammad built a castle, which is now where the Royal Palace stands. We will talk about that a little bit later because it deserves its own section! We had a pretty busy agenda set up for our time in Madrid with two days of walking tours and a day tour to Toledo.
Let’s start off with where we stayed:
Our hotel was Hotel Preciados. The hotel, housed in a refurbished 19th century building, was in a great area and walking distance to most everything in the city so we were able to park our car during our entire stay in the city. And just so you know, parking is a little pricey! For us to keep our car parked at the hotel it was 30 euro per day! But honestly it was easier to just leave it parked and walk or take an uber or train to the things we wanted to do, so it was worth it!
The Royal Palace
Our first walking tour was a private guided tour of the old city. We got a great overview and an introduction of all the squares in Madrid, which all are popular with not only tourist but locals as well. Many of which have historical significance for the city. While we saw lots of sites including the Cathedral, the highlight of the day was of course the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest in Western Europe and one of the largest in the world. With over 135,000 square meters (that’s anlmost 1.5 million square feet), it has close to 3,500 rooms, and it is massive! We spent a couple of hours there and only saw a very small portion of it.
The only photos we got were from the outside really. They don’t allow photography in the majority of the palace. There is so much art throughout and you can walk through beautiful rooms lined with silk on the walls and in general just a very luxurious and extravagant! This was one of the highlight for our trip for sure!
And one thing you don’t want to miss is the Royal Armory Museum that is located in corner opposite the main entrance to the palace (after you have entered the palace grounds). It ‘s one of the largest collections of its kind, and again, we weren’t allowed to take photos inside but it is a two story museum (second floor is underground) and it is very very cool! This museum contains the armor used by the previous Kings of Spain as well as armor for their horses (and the kings favorite dog for that matter!). You definitely don’t want to miss this if you plan on visiting the palace!
The Prado Museum tour
The next day we had an another walking tour that included The Prado Museum. We got to see some of the arts and cultural parts of the city before entering the museum which was a nice surprise. The Prado museum was something we both were looking forward to but honestly after walking around for about an hour and a half prior to entering the museum we were both already a little exhausted. With that being said we did enjoy the museum and the highlight for Pete was the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. There were so many amazing pieces of art in this museum I wished we had a way to capture everything we saw but again, no photography was allowed. The only thing we would change is about this day is that we would make the Prada Museum the first stop or the only activity for the day. Especially if you enjoy art and at history as we only got to see a small fraction of the museum and really would have loved to have spent more time there.
We did get to do a little site seeing on our way to the museum and here are some highlights from that:
Day trip to Toledo
On our last full day in Madrid we had a day tour away from the city to visit Toledo. Toledo is one of the most picturesque landscapes in the region and in 1986 was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. And yes, I would agree that the most impressive part of Toledo is the view of the city. It is often referred to as the first Spanish landscape because of how beautiful it is. It is definitely just a day trip and for the most part is primarily a tourist destination, easily distinguished by the tourist type shops etc. With that being said, they did have some nice pottery shops that have some amazing work by local artists. (We may have selected a couple of pieces that will be back in the states waiting for us when we return!) While it wasn’t my favorite city, I wouldn’t skip it, especially if you are already in Madrid and have a day to spare.
Most visitors of Madrid will schedule a Flamenco show and Madrid is your one stop destination to Spain you definitely want to do that! We saw one in Seville when we arrived in Spain so we skipped a show in Madrid. (Click HERE if you haven’t seen our post about Seville)
The historic Plazas of Madrid
One distinctive achitecutral aspect of Madrid is the plazas. There are several very historic plazas and all are beautiful. From our hotel we walked through some of the main plazas several times during our 4 days in Madrid.
One of our favorite was Plaza Mayor! This plaza has been the scene of many historical events in Madrid, including local executions back during the Spanish Inquisition. In the more recent past it has hosted bullfights and even soccer games, as well as the location of their annual Christmas market still to this day! We headed back to this plaza several times during our stay for dinner as in the evening it is surrounded by restaurants and tapas bars.
Some other highlights of the bustling city of Madrid
Bodegas la Ardosa is the oldest bar in Spain and is a must see if visiting the city. It is over 125 years old and is still in operation today!
Restaurant Botin is the oldest restaurant in the world and has the Guinness Book of World Record certificate to prove it! We regret not making reservations ahead of time because we were not able to get in last minute so I all I have are these photos from the outside. We recommend making reservations at least a month in advance if you want to actually have dinner here!
There is a famous churro shop in Madrid and we were able to stop by and check it out. And while we enjoyed an afternoon sweet there, we still would rank the Málaga for the best churros we have had thus far in spain. Click HERE to check our blog about Málaga if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet. But of course it is still worth checking out Chocolatería San Ginés if you have time! There are tons of photos of all the famous people that have enjoyed a churros or two in the past posted all along the walls of this famous spot!
And don’t judge us for recommending this place: La Taglietella is an Italian Restaurant and was across the street from our hotel. With 3 weeks in Spain we were up for something a little different and stopped by because we saw the pizza oven through the front window. I can honestly say that the house salad and pizza we got was amazing and YES, I realize now that this is a chain restaurant and can be found all over Portugal, Spain and Italy. (I know this because I posted the video below on social media and was scolded for picking a chain restaurant to eat at while visiting Madrid) But I don’t care what the internet trolls have to say, we thoroughly enjoyed it and hand’s down the best salad I have probably ever had! You can check out the video below:
Takeaways of our time in Madrid
The temperature while we were in Madrid was on the warmer side. Like just as hot as Texas in August hot….. We were exhausted after just a couple of days walking the city during the heart of summer. We would recommend coming during a time of year that is a little cooler! You could enjoy walking the city a bit more when it is a little cooler and possibly less crowded as well.
While we enjoyed our visit to Madrid, this has not been our favorite city in Spain thus far. We are not knocking any travel there as there is a lot to see and worth going to, but this is somewhere that is a once and done for us and just not somewhere we would probably travel back to. There are already a few places in Spain that we have enjoyed more and we still have 3 more cities to go!
The Modern Nomads 
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