Mame Dee Travel World
Spain, without the guesswork
Madrid, and the day trips most people never take
Nine stops in the order I would actually do them. Two days in the city, then three days out of it, including the oldest restaurant on earth and a waterfall park nobody expects to be in Spain.
Ride a tuk tuk on day one
Not a gimmick, a shortcut. One open air loop and the whole city clicks into place in your head, so for the next four days you actually know where you are instead of following a blue dot on a phone.
The Royal Palace of Madrid
3,418 rooms across 135,000 square metres, roughly twice the size of Buckingham Palace. It is the largest royal palace in Europe, and the royal family does not even live in it. You are walking through what they left behind.
The oldest restaurant in the world
Sobrino de Botin has been open since 1725, and Guinness holds it as the oldest restaurant on earth still running. The wood oven roasting your suckling pig has never been allowed to go out, not once in 300 years. Hemingway ended The Sun Also Rises at one of these tables. Book ahead, this one fills.
Buy cookies from nuns you never see
Behind a plain door in the old town, cloistered nuns sell sweets through a wooden turntable in a dark hallway. You put money on it, it spins, cookies come back. Nobody says a word. Easily the strangest fifteen minutes of the trip, and the one people ask me about afterwards.
Palacio de Cristal
A palace made almost entirely of glass, sitting in the middle of Retiro park with a pond in front of it. Built in 1887 to hold plants shipped over from the Philippines. Go late afternoon, when the light comes through the whole structure.
Flamenco and dinner at Cafe Ziryab
Eighty seats, so nobody is far from the floor, and the lineup changes every week. You are watching working artists rather than the same fixed set three coach tours saw yesterday. You can eat while you watch.
Aranjuez
Forty five minutes out of the city and you are in the spring palace of Spanish kings, with 111 hectares of gardens running along the Tagus. UNESCO listed since 2001. The easiest big win on this whole list.
Seville, and back by dinner
Two and a half hours on the fast train, with roughly 22 of them a day. Leave after breakfast, walk into the Plaza de Espana by lunch, be back in Madrid for dinner. Yes, in one day.
Monasterio de Piedra
A monastery the monks founded in 1194, wrapped in a park of waterfalls and green pools, with a cave hidden inside the 50 metre Cola de Caballo falls. Two and a half hours from Madrid, 15 euros to get in. Nobody expects this to be in Spain.
So how many days is this, really?
Five days, six nights. Two of them in the city, three of them out of it. Madrid itself is genuinely a two day town if you are efficient, and the reason people come back saying it was fine rather than unforgettable is that they spent five days inside the same square mile. The day trips are where this itinerary earns its keep.
Drop Seville and Piedra and it compresses to three days without feeling rushed. Keep them and you get a trip that looks like three countries.
What I have not put on this page
The order I would put these in for your specific dates, what each one actually costs once you add transport, which two I would cut if you only had three days, and the timing that keeps you out of the queues. That part depends on when you go and who you are going with, so it is not a list, it is a plan.
Want the plan instead of the list?
Finding the landmarks AND the things only locals know is what I do for a living, so your trip comes out well rounded instead of just famous. I do the research and hand you a clear plan and your own travel page. You book everything yourself, directly.
Start with the free Travel Match quiz See how the planning worksQuestions I get about Madrid
Is five days too long for Madrid?
For the city alone, yes. Madrid is a strong two day city. Five days works because three of them leave town, and that is what turns a city break into a trip.
Do I need a car for the day trips?
Not for Aranjuez or Seville, both are trains. Monasterio de Piedra is the one that is far easier with a car, at about two and a half hours each way from Madrid.
Which one would you not skip?
The tuk tuk on day one, which surprises people. It is the cheapest thing on this list and it makes every other day easier, because you stop being lost.
Photographs on this page are freely licensed from Wikimedia Commons and are not my own: Javier Perez Montes (CC BY-SA 4.0), Tim Adams (CC BY-SA 4.0), Maria Morri from Tampere, Finland (CC BY-SA 2.0), Alvesgaspar (CC BY-SA 3.0), vpogarcia (CC BY-SA 2.0), Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0), Martin Cox from Benicasim, España (CC BY 2.0), Carlos Delgado (CC BY-SA 4.0), Carquinyol from Badalona, Catalunya (CC BY-SA 2.0). Prices, opening hours and booking rules change, so check each official site before you go.