Madrid: metropole and capital city of Spain

As you might already know, I am a solo traveler, who combines work with travel. That means, when I spend a week or two somewhere, I teach from there (just like at home) and I also explore the city. This time, in January, I flew to Spain, to visit two very famous cities, Madrid and Barcelona. I hadn’t expected that they would be so different!

Flying in sunset

The flight from Budapest to Madrid was almost 3 hours long, although we arrived much ahead of schedule. I had thought that we would fly in the darkness, but as we were heading to the Southwest, it was light during the whole flight. Actually, there was sunset for a very long time, and it was just beautiful! It was also a peaceful flight, and I was amazed, especially when we landed in Madrid: it was an amazing view. “Welcome to the Mediterranean” – I thought to myself.

Accommodation nightmare

After this relaxing flight, my journey in Spain started with some complications and a lot of stress because I had to find an alternative accommodation instead of the apartment I had booked at one of the most popular accommodating websites. The place turned out to be a shared flat where I was not supposed to have phone and video calls – which is practically my job. I would never have booked such accommodation for my one-week-stay, but the description on the website was misleading. Due to this, the beginning of my journey was quite ruined, especially when I spent altogether hours on the phone talking to the company, trying to get some compensation, and finally I was only refunded a small amount of the price for the apartment. I was very angry but what was more important was to find a hotel for at least the first night.

After leaving the apartment at around 9 p.m., I headed to the nearest pub or bar to get some food as I was starving. The language barrier was already visible: no one in the staff spoke English, only Spanish, but finally a guy who was a guest too, helped me out. He translated me the whole time! While having a salad and some fries, I found and booked a hotel as well as a taxi. I just wanted to arrive there and rest a bit after this adventurous arrival. I already felt exhausted!

Finally, I stayed for two nights at a hotel, then I moved to an aparthotel (a combination of an apartment and a hotel). That was a good option for me to work from there and also being able to prepare something for breakfast and dinner (when not going out to a restaurant). It was a beautiful place, and I was lucky to find it with quite a huge discount for my last-minute reservation.

Exploring the city and some cultural shock

The city itself was beautiful, I really liked it! First, I enjoyed the mild, sunny weather, although it was only nice during the weekend, then it started to rain and was grey almost the whole week. Anyway, I walked quite a lot around the city center on Saturday and Sunday, tried to visit many famous places. The top two programs were the Prado Museum and the Royal Palace. The museum was similar to the famous museums in Italy such as the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, it is huge, and you need several hours to see everything. I spent three hours inside and then sat down to have a warm tea as it was so cold in the museum. At that point, I already faced several culture shock experiences: First that it was getting dark really late, just like here in Hungary in May or something like that. Most people still had a coffee between 6 and 7 p.m., the opening hours were very long, and many people were still lining up at the entrance. The whole life was a bit shifted there, everything seemed to be later than elsewhere in Europe. You cannot go to a restaurant to have dinner before 8 p.m. (sometimes even 8:30 p.m.), only if it’s a fast-food restaurant or a place which is open throughout the day. The mornings are quiet and dark, it’s getting light very late, sometime after 8 a.m. And they often don’t use heating inside, or it’s very limited. Spanish people often sit in their coats or jackets in the restaurant, which I find crazy!

The other thing was with the language. In Madrid, it was hard to find people who would speak English, even if just a little bit. In the restaurants, there was usually at least one waiter or waitress who could speak with me, but even in a fast-food restaurant I was struggling, plus in some souvenir shops in the center! In the subway, everything is said only in Spanish, so I got used to it very quickly. Although I can understand a bit of Spanish, they speak very fast, and to ask questions myself is almost impossible. It’s not like Italian for me. In Italy, I didn’t have such problems with the language.

The Royal Palace and shopping street

On Sunday, I had a ticket for an English guided tour in the Royal Palace. It was amazing! The palace is huge and beautiful, it is often compared to Versailles in France. Our guide told us a lot of information during the two-hour-long visit. I would have stayed a bit longer in some of the rooms, but it was also nice to participate in such a tour. After that I had time to take some photos of the palace from outside, to enjoy the bright sunshine on the huge square and then to visit the basilica opposite the palace. Our tour guide recommended it to us as it is free, you can just walk inside when it’s open. It was beautiful, so special with the colorful Spanish decorations! And there was even a concert inside, a choir was singing. I visited quite a lot of places in the city after that, but I think that my favorite was still the Royal Palace and its surroundings.

During the week, I didn’t have a lot of time for sightseeing, as I was working a lot. Still, I enjoyed going to the city center or downtown when I had a couple of hours of break, and to go out for dinner and enjoy the illuminations of the city. The first time I was in this part of the city, with a huge shopping street, hotels, restaurants, etc., I was surprised, because it seemed to be so different than the parts I had visited before. But that was also Madrid, the metropolis. It reminded me a bit of Milan; it had a similar atmosphere for me. Of course, Madrid is not so famous for its fashion as Milan, but the vibes of both cities are a little bit similar, I would say. Especially, when I later compared these cities to Barcelona…

Madrid has a lot of parks and huge areas which are worth exploring. I went for a short walk to the most famous park, El Retiro, after having visited the Prado Museum. It was already getting dark, but I could still see a bit of the park and the sunset at the entrance. It was very spectacular!

Lesson learnt

I was lucky, because I was travelling in January and so the city wasn’t crowded. I enjoyed this relaxed atmosphere and that I was in a Mediterranean city that has so much to offer for sightseeing. I was a bit sad to leave this place after my one-week-long stay. It was more or less enough time for the Spanish capital, but together with working and finding a new accommodation at the weekend, it wasn’t so much time after all. What I most learnt from this trip is that I need to double-check all the information about the accommodation. And if I’m not sure it’s going to be suitable or if I have a bad gut feeling about it, it’s better to choose something else. I recommend it to you as well, because it’s not much fun to search for a random hotel when you are totally alone and lost in a strange city and country.

Luxurious train journey

On the other hand, the transfer from Madrid to Barcelona was much more enjoyable and convenient. I had a train ticket for an intercity train, a 2 hour and 45 minutes long ride. I was amazed to find out that the distance between these two big cities is more than 500 km. That means our train was very fast! Actually, it was not rare that our speed was around 300 km/h! I have never been to such a train station as in Madrid and on such a train as this one. Not only are there palm trees and other plants in the middle of the train station, inside the hall, but also the security control is very similar to the one at the airports. The whole procedure of boarding was interesting and when I got on the train, to the carriage which was on my ticket, I thought that I was in first class, it was so beautiful! I asked the staff who was there, and he just answered that it was something like first class. I asked him to check my ticket, and he told me that I was in the right place, I could take my seat. There were huge leather seats with lots of space between them. It was very comfortable and nice; I really enjoyed my journey on this intercity train. I didn’t even want it to come to an end so soon! But it had to, because Barcelona was already waiting for me…

Some tips, if you visit Madrid

Be prepared that English is not spoken everywhere. You might want to learn a few key words and expressions before your trip and have your mobile phone ready for translation.

You will have dinner later, usually around 9 p.m. (or even later, if you want).

Everywhere will be loud and people will be very open.

Have some coins with you, if you need to travel by bus. You can pay directly to the driver but only with coins or max. 5 Euro.

It’s worth buying a 10-ride-ticket for the public transport. In case you need more tickets, you can use the same card and upload it with new tickets, then it costs much less than the first ten tickets. Public transport is much cheaper than in Barcelona. A 10-tickets card is between 8 and 9 Euros, recharging it is only between 6 and 7 Euros.

If you need a taxi, you can use the Bolt app which is cheaper. I was satisfied with their service.

In restaurants, you should check whether the bill contains the service fee or not. In my experience, it can differ in different places.

It’s worth booking a table if you want to eat out, especially at night. The places I visited all had the option of online reservation. It’s easy and convenient. Just search for it on the internet!