A city of museums, baroque palaces, and tunnels with renowned soccer teams and chefs. Home of gypsies, bullfighters, and nobles; related to icons such as Miguel de Cervantes, Francisco Goya and Pedro Almodóvar; Madrid has a lot to offer.

Madrid is known for its sports teams, museums, tapas plus its baroque churches, Gran Vía and tunnels. Its historic but contemporary, relaxing yet chaotic, ordinary and noble at the same time. Within the art world it plays a huge role in the academia sphere; and outside of it, it’s important in the entertainment, culinary and sports worlds. Many iconic painters, writers, chefs, athletes and actors have emerged from this city. Think of Velazquez, Goya, Miguel de Cervantes, Dabiz Muñoz, Mario Sandoval, Carlos Sainz, Cristiano Ronaldo, Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas or Manu Ríos. There’s a lot to check out but if you only have a limited amount of time I would make sure to visit 1 museum, eat tapas in a terrace, drink a sangria in plaza mayor, relax in a baroque church, watch a flamenco show, shop around Gran vía, go to a football match in the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, and take a picture in front of the Puerta de Alcalá and/or Fuente de Cibeles. If you have more time you should try to drive up and down Paseo La Castellana-Prado, shop around Salamanca or La Latina, get lost in Chueca, read a Spanish writer in El Retiro and explore a palace, and why not, attend a bullfight.

Here are some recommendations of places to visit. Madrid has 1 unesco site: Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, a landscape of Arts and Sciences (the museums around the paseo del Prado and el Retiro are also part of the unesco site so technically you have multiple unesco sites to visit during your stay) but you could visit other 2 close to the city, the Escorial and the town of Segovia. The city has 30 ‘Michelin restaurants’ with 6 having 2 stars, so try to make a reservation to one of them. The top 5 museums are: The Archeology Museum of Madrid for antiquities; the Prado for the Spanish Golden Age art; the Reina Sofia for modern art; Matadero Madrid for contemporary art; and the Museo Thyssen for a little bit of everything. My favorite art galleries are: Galeria Memoria, Casado Santapau, Galeria Alzueta, Galeria Cayon y Marlborough. For luxury shopping go to Calle de Serrano or the department store El Corte Inglés; for the typical brands go to Gran Via; and for cheaper goods La Latina. Also take a chance to walk around Caleido the new shopping mall of Madrid. Some venues to check out are Teatro Real for classical music; Teatro Lope de Vega for big productions, El Cortijo for a local flamenco show and Cines Callao for movies.

Here are 7 routs to explore Madrid:

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