All our Practical & tips guides for Madrid, in one place.
Getting from Madrid Barajas into the centre: the metro and its airport supplement, the express bus that runs all night, the fixed-fare taxi, and which terminal changes the answer.
What to save before you travel: the single European emergency number, the local police lines, how Spanish pharmacies work, what the EHIC and GHIC actually cover, and what they do not.
How to move around Madrid: the rechargeable travel card, which pass is worth it, the zone boundary that catches people out, the Cercanias trains for day trips, taxis and when to just walk.
How entering Spain works for a Madrid trip: who travels visa free and for how long, how the rolling Schengen count works, the new biometric border, passport validity, and what to have ready at the airport.
Madrid's big museums open free for the last hours of the day. What that period is really like, which museums offer it, how early to arrive, and when paying is the better decision.
The city sits on a dry plateau and July afternoons are brutal. Locals do not fight it, they restructure the day around it, and the day they build is a good one.
Free museum hours, a legally protected set lunch, a flat walkable centre and public transport that costs almost nothing. Where the money actually goes here.
Madrid is a safe city with a specific and well organised theft problem, concentrated in about six places. Knowing which six solves most of it.