Madrid

smileygal

Any recommendations for Madrid other than the usual Prado etc?Good bars/tapas places?

drrnwbb

ooh, im looking for madrid tips too. going there in a few weeks.

Dizzyblabla

I'm going July 10th!! we could have a boards meet up over there if anyone else is going at that time!
I know nothing about the place, if anyone has any information at all, let me know!

[EDIT] no, I'm not, I just checked, I'm going to Milan... so if anyone has info on there, it would be great! ha ha... (damn hangover!) [/EDIT]

tinkerbell

Make sure you visit the Beckhams

p.pete

Was there 2 weeks ago - didn't go to Prado but went to another gallery, Rene Sofia I think it's called which is quite good.

Quite a hilly city, probably wouldn't have bothered me except I was there to run a marathon

Buy 10 journey tickets for the Metro - you can get that at the airport before you go into the metro station (located at terminal . It's a tourist ticket and you'll have to show them a passport to get it but worked out handy enough.

Other then that it's a pretty cool city, I spent a lot of the time just wandering about happily

smileygal

ta, didn't know it was hilly. Aiming to do the usual stuff like Prado, Plaza Mayor, Palace (well the outside anyway, might get invited in for tapas). Must check with David and Victoria to see if they'll be in residence in Palacio Beckham..

MiCr0

every one get the cheap flight on aer lingus?
myself and the wife are off to madrid for 88euro return for the two of us next week

its a great city

smileygal

88!! aargh. Aer Lingus yes, but more than that, but not next week. Did save 20 quid or so by going on certain return day, rather than the next one.

hansov

Madrid is a brilliant city. Even mrs. hansov enjoyed the Real Madrid stadium (beckham was playing for England that week so wasn't around to offer us a cuppa). The 10 journey metro ticket is great. We were told that we could use one between both of us, just cancel it twice. We found an amazing shopping street on the east side of the city just past the bull ring. It was grafton street mixed with henry street with a liffey valley shopping centre at the end if you get my analogy. If I find the name of the road I'll post it again. Enjoy......... h

hansov

The street is Calle de Alcala and the bullring is Plaza de Toros Monumental. If I remember correctly it may have been a street slightly to the north of calle de alcala at the bullring. Dizzyblabla you're lucky that its milan you are going to as madrid in July is (phew!) hot and even hotter! Even the locals clear out!!

smileygal

Thanks for that. Planning to combat dehydration with sangría...

monkeyfudge

I went there a couple of times last year.

Last time I went to the Wanner Brothers Park, which was pretty fun and very unpopular so their were hardly any queues. There is another older amusement park in the city as well, but it's alot more popular with longer queues.

The Madrid Wax Museum is very nice... but it's a bit on the pricey side and you'll want to avoid the 'Multivision' AV display at the begining, as it gives a horribly facist run down of Spanish history. And speaking of facism, Franco's tomb is just outside the city and is an interesting site to see, it's absolutely enormous.

smileygal

Might go to Franco's tomb and give my disrespects so.....

altho he might have some fans policing the place...