When arriving in a huge city as is Madrid you may feel you don’t have enough time to visit everything and you start to get blocked and stressed as you want to visit as much as possible.

Personally, I am a traveler who always want to have everything under control in order not to miss anything important: monuments, museums, parks, …but at the same time I want to do local things such as have a beer on a specific bar or meet interesting people in a meeting.

Therefore, before starting feeling overwhelmed, we need to do a deep research of the place.

This time I talk about Madrid but you can put it to use in whatever city you prefer 🙂

First of all, I distribute the city in topics and kinds of “tourism”: cultural and leisure and also curious things (although sometimes are stupid).

Madrid has a lot of cultural stuff, especially museums.

We will make a list of all the things we would like to see and we will write down the timetable and prices:

• Retiro’s park: Free entrance.
  • Summer (April to September): from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m.
  • Winter (October to March): from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

• Prado’s museum: 16 euro entrance
  • Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
  • Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
  • Free entrance:
    • Monday to Saturday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
    • Sundays and holidays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• Thyssen museum: 12 euro entrance.
  • Tuesday to Sunday: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays from 12 noon to 4 p.m.
• Sofia’s queen museum: 10 euro entrance.
  • Open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Tuesday closes)
  • Free entrance: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.)  Sunday (1:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
•  Neighborhoods
  • Lavapiés
  • Salamanca
  • Malasaña
  • Chueca
  • Centro
• Religious visits
  • Almudena’s cathedral:
    • Price: 1 euro donation.
    • Open from Monday to Sunday from 10 a.m. till 9 p.m.

• Monuments. They are placed in the public area.
  • Alcala’s gate

    

• Buildings and palaces
  • Real palace: 
    • Basic price: 10 euros
    • Winter (October to March). Every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
    • Summer (April to September) Every day from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
  • The glass palace: Free entrance. The timetable is the same than Retiro’s park.
  • Congress building: the entrance is free but you can also access when there’s no activity. You have to book it in advance. You can also enjoy a 1-hour tour from Monday to Friday (from 10 a.m.) and from Monday to Thursday from 4 p.m.
    • (Closes in Easter, August and also in special days)

Once we are sure about all the information, we can start planning our days in the city.

TIP! If you want to access for free in the museums make clear to go as soon as possible because it gets really crowded. Personally, if you really want to enjoy the museum it’s better to go in the morning and pay the entrance, it’s worth it.