Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, which helps us run this site. We only recommend products and services we trust and personally use.
Madrid was one of our stops on our 4-month European Adventure. We spent 2 days here in early April 2024. Multiple friends had told us they didn’t care for Madrid, so we didn’t plan much time here. However, we quite enjoyed our two days! Two days was enough time to explore the highlights, but you could spend more time than this if you are interested in going into the museums or if you want to take any day trips. We will include these options at the end of our post.
We stayed at Petit Palace Tres Cruces, so our itinerary will be using this area (Sol-Gran Via) as a starting point. Adjust accordingly if you are staying in a very different area. We had family recommend Blume Cruz Suites and friends recommend Hotel Emperador, so those might be worth checking out.
If you want to check out where we ate during our 3 days, our gluten free guide is here.
Here is what we did during our 2 days (3 nights) in Madrid:
Day 0: Arrival, Gran Via, Plaza de Espana, Temple of Debod
Day 1: Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Mercado de San Miguel, Catedral de la Almudena, Royal Palace of Madrid, Plaza de Oriente, Teatro Real, Malasana
Day 2: Plaza de Ceibele, Puerta de Alcala, El Retiro Park
Day 3: Departure
There is a map at the end of the post with all this information (the itinerary, museums, and day trips). If you want to build your own itinerary, want information about where to stay, or need more to do during your Madrid stay, check out our Madrid city guide!
Save Money on Madrid Attractions
If you plan to visit multiple major sights like Royal Palace of Madrid or the Prado Museum, take day trips, and do guided tours, individual tickets can add up quickly.
Here are your main options:
• Go City Madrid Pass – Bundles multiple attractions into one pass and can be cost-effective if you’re planning to see several major sights. Can include tours, too. (use coupon code CAPTURENCRAVE5 for a 5% discount)
• Get Your Guide – Great for booking individual timed-entry tickets or guided tours in advance.
• Official websites – Always check pricing directly to compare.
We recommend booking key attractions ahead of time, particularly in peak season, as tickets do sell out.
DETAILS
DAY 0:
Arrival day! We arrived via the Puerta de Atocha train station, where we took the metro to the Gran Via station. If you plan on taking the metro to your accommodations, be prepared to pay a bit extra for the plastic transit card that you can load with money (2.50 Euro for the card). Check into your hotel and grab some food to fuel up before exploring.
Today you’ll explore the main shopping street of Gran Via. Depending on where you’re staying, we suggest heading west from Gran Via station. There are tons of unique buildings along this street, with intricate details and statues (look UP!). You’ll find lots of shopping along this street, as well as Broadway shows. Once you reach the end of Gran Via, you’ll find Plaza de Espana. This is a well-kept square with a big monument in the middle, paved walkways, and fantastic signage showing you where to go for points of interest.
From Plaza de Espana, follow the signs to the Temple of Debod, which will hopefully time up with sunset. This Egyptian temple is free to visit, though only a certain number of people are allowed in at a time and if you’re arriving for sunset, the time for visitors to enter will be over. Sadly, when we visited there was no water surrounding it like the pictures we had seen, and it wasn’t lit up at night.
DAY 1:
After grabbing breakfast, you’ll head off to explore Madrid on foot for the day. Start by making your way to Puerta del Sol, which has many beautiful surrounding streets. If you’re staying along Gran Via, you’re sure to pass through many stores on your way to Puerta del Sol, as there is lots of shopping in the surrounding area. The square itself is sure to be bustling, so keep your wits about you, but this also makes for great people watching! From Puerta del Sol, you’ll walk to Plaza Mayor, which is one of the larger plazas in Madrid. If you’re lucky, you’ll stumble upon some sort of event, or at least street artists or musicians.
Next up is Mercado de San Miguel. If you’ve spent lots of time exploring the neat streets, you may be ready for lunch or a snack. Mercado de San Miguel is a great spot to grab a bite, as there are tons of options! There is a wide variety of foods and price points. From the market, head to the Catedral de la Almudena. On your way, you’ll pass more neat streets and squares you can wander in and out of. At the cathedral, they will request 1 Euro per person to enter, so have cash ready for the drop box. The cathedral isn’t as grand as many others you may see on your visit to Spain, but it’s still worth a visit.
Right next to the cathedral is the Royal Palace of Madrid. If you’re hoping to enter, you will likely need pre-booked tickets (we didn’t get tickets ahead and they were sold out!). Tours of the palace are also available (again, book ahead!). If your tickets are for another time or day, you can still explore the outskirts of the palace, including walking around the outside to Plaza de Oriente. This is a beautiful plaza lined with manicured bushes, sculptures, and a grand fountain. At the edge of the plaza, you’ll find Teatro Real, which is Madrid’s major opera house. You can take tours of the opera house on certain days of the week, which came highly recommended, but tours weren’t running the days we were in Madrid. You can also come here to see performances and concerts.
After you’re done in the Royal Palace area, you’ll make your way to Malasana. This neighbourhood is super cool. The streets are lined with colourful buildings, and the stores are unique (think boutiques, vintage stores, and curated collections). This neighbourhood is a very different vibe to the more touristy Gran Via area. We really enjoyed it and spent quite a while wandering through the different streets and grabbing dinner in this area.
DAY 2:
Today’s main attraction is El Retiro Park. Again, if you’re not staying near Gran Via, your route will look a little bit different than what’s to come. Walk along Gran Via towards Plaza de Cibeles, which will be the opposite direction to which you walked along Gran Via the previous two days. Plaza de Cibeles is a massive square on a major road – keep your wits about you as there is tons of traffic in the area. There are so many beautiful buildings on the walk here (we were taking pictures of things like the big bank because the buildings were so gorgeous, and locals thought this was hilarious).
Continue onward towards Puerta de Alcala, a massive arch in the center of a roundabout right near one of the entrances to El Retiro Park. Time for the park! El Retiro is massive, and you can spend hours here, wandering through the different pathways and discovering hidden statues. We saw some people on bike tours through the park which looked neat. The park is where we spent most of our day.
There are a few main points of focus that we would say are places in the park not to miss. The first is the Monument to Alfonso XII, which sits on a massive pond (lake?). Make sure to walk around the entire thing. You can rent rowboats here if that’s something that interests you. The next “do not miss” is Palacio de Cristal. Unfortunately, it is under renovation until 2027, so you can’t enter it now. However, you can still see it from the outside and the surrounding areas are quite pretty. Lastly, you absolutely cannot miss the Rose Garden. Even though we were early in the season (early April), there were still flowers blooming. We can only imagine how stunning it would be when the whole garden is in full bloom!
If you have time left in your day, you can double back to anywhere you really loved or visit one of Madrid’s many museums. We went back to Malsana, but really most of our day was taken by the walk to and from the park, and our time at the park itself.
Museums
While we did not enter any museums, we had read ahead of time that Madrid has excellent options. Here are a few that came up on many “what to do in Madrid” lists as we researched, which we considered as options if we were in a museum mood or had bad weather.
- Museo Nacional del Prado (paintings – can get tours too)
- Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (contemporary art – can get tours too)
- Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (art)
- National Archaeological Museum (history)
- Banksy Museum (art)
MAP of Things to Do in Madrid
HOW TO USE THE MAP: Click on the Wanderlog logo in the bottom right corner to open the full-size map up in a new tab. There, you can choose to just look at one type of activity at a time or see all the activities on the map at once (click the 3 squares in the top right to choose). You can also export the map to Google Maps, share the map with others, or save the map.
Day Trips
We did not take any day trips from Madrid, as we were only there for 2 days. However, in our preliminary planning we did consider staying longer and adding in some day trips. Many blogs and travel planning sites suggested the following as good options:
- Toledo (about 1 hr drive, 1 hr by train)
- Segovia (just over 1 hr drive, 1 hr by train)
- Avila (1hr 15min drive, 1.5 hrs by train)
- Salamanca (2hrs 15min drive, 2hrs 45min by train)
- Cuenca (1hr 46min drive, 1.5 hrs by train)
- Royal site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (50min drive, 1hr 10min by train)
If you aren’t someone who likes to drive in foreign countries or do self-guided day trips, there are a number of group tours available, including:
Helpful Planning Tips
I rely on these tools when planning my trips:
- Get Your Guide – book skip-the-line tickets for the Royal Palace, Prado Museum, or Santiago Bernabeau Stadium
- Go City Pass – if you’re planning multiple attractions, compare passes for savings
- Airalo eSIM – get Spanish mobile data instantly, without roaming charges
- Stay22 – compare hotels in central neighbourhoods like Gran Via, Malasana, or Sol
- Wanderlog – keep track of your trip details, map your itinerary, and plan your Madrid days efficiently
The park looks so beautiful, I’m very early in the season although I’m really looking forward to exploring more in the next couple of days💕
We were a tad later (beginning of April), but it was still so serene in the midst of the city hustle and bustle!
Lovely itinerary! El Retiro park looks incredibly gorgeous, especially the rose garden and Palacio de Cristal.
Yes, so stunning! I can only imagine the rose garden in full bloom.