I have JUST returned from a week's stay in Madrid, with day trips to Toledo and Segovia. I will give details as soon as I get my bearings back here at home but I wanted to say the following :

1) Thanks to ALL you marvelous Fodorites for your tips, suggestions, replies and help
2) Maribel - You are stupendous!! All your tips, suggestions, recommendations for restaurants, tips for the museums, etc. were right on target.
3) Madrilenos are great people, Madrid is a CLEAN city, things are on time and correct, pleasure to experience.
4) Never ONCE did I feel even slightly "threatened" by pickpockets or worse. And I DID use the metro, walk late at night, etc.

I will post details about hotel, restaurants, attractions, etc. soon.

Hasta luego for now!!

Hi Flame123,
Eagerly awaiting your report-was thinking about your trip and hoping that your week went smoothly and that you had a really great time!

Welcome home!

Looking forward to reading your report (and hear what you thought of the hotel, since two more friends of mine are staying there in early May).

Hi,
We will be going to Spain this summer. Can you please advise as to what is the best way to handle monies? I don't want to take a wad of cash, but need to have some on hand. Also do you know if most stores/establishments take credit cards and if so do they charge a % of the bill? How about a debit card?charge too? What is a must see in Madrid,Barcelona??
One more question too....where is the best place to exchange your US dollar for Euro dollar?
Thanks a bunch in advance

Janruiz:

To get euros, don't exchange US dollars. Too expensive and inconvenient. Just use an ATM and it will give you the local currency and take it out of your account at that day's exchange rate, plus the usual ATM fee.

Most places in Spain take your American MasterCard but only a few take American Express.

Janruiz,

Hijacking a thread, yeah?

Best way is what matches your objectives, your plan, and your style. I have seen too many travelers, myself included, who took recommendations at face value without considering if the assumptions behind recommendations, often unstated, apply in their case.

There are several aspects of money management: day to day issue, exchange efficiency, system availability, and theft.

The amount of cash depends on your need. At upper end, there is no need to carry more cash with you than what you plan to spend in a day and keep excess in the hotel safe except, off course, the days on the road. You can even reduce the cash at hand if you plan to return your hotel to be able to replenish your supply.

As for the exchange efficiency, the aspect most talked about, the ATMs would generally give you the best rate within the parameters of the fee structure imposed by your bank. Another issue is whether the ATM system is functional with your card to allow you to access your bank. While ATM systems have gotten reliable, I still encounter mysterious operation failures. There are many who travel to Europe without ever encountering ATM failures. Whether you have the similar "successful" setup is the issue of applicability. I always make sure I have enough cash to last at least two days to protect myself from rare but still very real ATM failures. The last trip, I had a dingbat bank clerk who processed my card as "lost" instead of "enable for foreign use." So to my surprise, my card completely stopped working. Luckily I found this out a day before the departure and had a heated talk with the call center supervisor, who initially proposed that I pay $30 for an express service fee to have my card reissued, to back down and admit their error and re-enable my card.

Debit cards used for purchase have all the liabilities of credit cards and no benefit.

Credit cards were accepted at established stores. I encountered Dynamic Currency Conversion practice in Spain. This is where merchants proposed to do you a "favor" by converting Euro into U.S. dollar (for a U.S. CC user) and charge you in your home currency. Why do they do this? Because it is very profitable for the merchant and a bad deal for the cc user. The merchant "automatically" converts Euro into U.S. dollar at many points over the official conversion rate - in their favor. They do this quietly by handing you a credit slip to sign with amount denominated in U.S. dollar. You can refuse this and insist that you be charged in Euro. The clerks always mumble that they cannot do this, but so far I won every time by talking to the supervisor who grudgingly showed the clerk what to do.

The stores don't charge (and I believe shouldn't charge per their agreement with the CC processor) percentage except for the DCC mentioned previously. But YOUR bank does. The stores can give you cash discount.


Exchanging dollar cash to euro cash gets hit by high fees and bad rates. If I "have" to do it, I use a bank. I think Hotels and exchange bureaus charge a lot fees and give bad rates.

The topic of theft are discussed extensively and heatedly in this forum.

Our First Night and Day in Madrid :

We landed at Barajas airport at 8:45 local time and it was still light out!! Madrid airport HAS to be the biggest and most spread-out airport I ever did see. Nothing is marked well, i.e. we could not find any signage or information regarding where our suitcases would be, the place looked completely deserted even at such a regular normal time. We had to walk forever to get to the place where we had to take a 4 minute train ride to another area where we got our luggage. We walked out and found our shuttle (Aerocity) desk easily and within 10 minutes or so were in the shuttle mini-van along with another couple. This is a shared service with a maximum of three stops along the way so we only had one other stop before ours to drop them off. The whole ride took less than half an hour and cost 23 Euros for both of us. Very worthwhile and HIGHLY recommended (more on this at the end of the report!!).

Our hotel - Hotel Preciados - is lovely (sf7307 thanks for your info and recommendations!!) it seems to be right in the midst of the center of town and the room is lovely. It is large enough by European standards and the bathroom is very large. Everything is clean and well organized. The beds are the most fabulous I have ever slept in a hotel room. They are hard and firm (makes for no backaches in the mornings!!) and they have two huge wonderful pillows for each of us. A/C or heating is controlled individually in each room so that is nice too. And they work well. We have no view from the room save that of an interior wall unit but that does not bother me. There is a large safe in the room, free Wi-Fi and free drinks in the mini-bar including beer and soft drinks, juices and water.

When I unpacked my suitcase I noticed that it looked very messy, more messy than just having been thrown around. Turns out someone went through my bag and stole one of my perfumes out of it. My husband said maybe I forgot to put it in but I KNOW I did so that was really a yuck feeling. I hope nothing else was taken that I forgot about. It looks like that was the only thing they took, no clothes or anything. I saw also they messed about and ripped the packaging bag where my new Spanish English dictionary was, actually looked like a dog had mauled it or something, so very weird. Anyway I hope this is NOT a harbinger of things to come.

We had great showers and a good night's sleep.

Next morning we awoke early and after much messing about we finally got up and out albeit it was still quite early for Madrid standards and were out for a café con leche with a typical breakfast of toasted bread with olive oil, salt and pureed tomatoes. 1.85 Euros a piece at a chain called PAN not far from the hotel.

My husband had the brilliant idea to try to go to Museo del Prado. I had read i Maribel's guide that you need to buy tickets in advance, it is crowded, etc. etc. But we got there by walking about 15 minutes down the Gran Via, a main street not far from the hotel, reminds me a bit of 5th avenue, and eventually, asking people and looking at maps, we got there. There was NO LINE at all anywhere, and yes it HAD opened already. I guess we were just lucky. We also bought a combined three-way ticket for all three major museums here The Prado, Reina Sofia and Thyssien for 14.40 Euros times two. Very nice deal, also discussed and recommended by Maribel.

So we started in the museum and saw beautiful paintings by Goya, El Greco, Velasquez, even a Rembrant, and many more. We paced back and forth and forth and back (I done particularly prefer these types of museums where you never know where you have been and where you should still need to go) for about three hours. By that time groups had started to come in, there were tour groups, school groups and even little kindergarten age kids groups. We made some nice purchases in the museum gift shop and walked out about 12:30.

I decided to use Maribel's Guide yet again to try and find a great deal for lunch. We looked at some of her recommendations in the area we were in and stopped by the tourist office to ask for directions on a map. We ended up at a place called CUBIK. Just as we were looking for it, some guy thrust one of those flyers in my hand, just for this place!! So we found it just around that corner. We were the first ones in the restaurant but several more patrons arrived after we started eating.

It was a small cute place and had a menu del dia for the price of 10.50 Euros apiece. This included a drink, beer for my husband and light coke for me, a bread basket which was refilled if you wanted and three courses!! My husband started with a salad of spinach, melon, cheeses and nuts. I had a strange but good dish of potato chips with marinated vegetables, a poached egg on top and balsamic dressing. My husband's main was entrecote with chips and chimichurri, I had three fabulous chicken meatballs in a mushroom sauce with some salad on the side. We both ended with a nice chocolate mousse and I asked for an espresso as well (not very good – not like in Italy - oh well). When the bill came I saw it was only 12.10 Euros. Did not understand. And then I saw that they were having yet another great deal. Two for the price of one. So we BOTH ate for 10.50 Euros, the extra charge being my coffee. We were really pleased. And full and sated. Doesn't get any better than this!!

We walked back towards the hotel, my husband preferring to go back to the hotel but I could not resist going into the El Cortes Ingles department store, conveniently located RIGHT at the end of the street to the hotel, walked around and saw many very expensive items but found a few things to buy, both as gifts and for myself and happily walked back to the hotel.

We had a bit of a rest in the afternoon and I took a bath which was lovely and soothing to my already tired feet. Then we were out again at about 7 PM and walked down Calle des Preciados which is a pedestrian street and ends at Puerto del Sol, a large plaza which is completely under repairs and you really can't see much there. From there it is a walk down Calle Mayor to Plaza Mayor which is a main huge plaza in Madrid. We walked around, in and out of small little streets with the most beautiful small tapas bars and restaurants. We could not decide where to have a tapas meal or a dinner and by that time, we had been walking quite a bit so we decided it was getting dark (only at 9 PM here!!) and started back towards the hotel.

On the way on Calle Mayor we saw a place called Museo de Jambon which would mean literraly Ham Museum I guess. I realized later it is a chain place and it was really filled to the brim, and the entire place had hams hanging from everywhere. Since we also saw cheese there we decided to go in and see whether they would make us a sandwich for dinner. I found two young girls at the stand-up counter and asked whether they could help us figure out what we needed to do. It looked like there was a sign that said everything was one Euro, a beer, a sandwich, etc. They did not speak enough English to help but some guys next to us did. They said that when we order a drink, they bring us a plate of tapas. If we want a sandwich, we order one. So that is what we did, we had two ice cold draft beers which were just delicious (I NEVER drink beer) and got a plate of ham and cheeses with it, free. We ordered two cheese sandwiches and got them on beautiful large fresh baguettes and the cheese was good too. Entire dinner meal for two? Four Euros!! My husband could not resits getting a pastry for desert for another 1.10 Euros. Wow.

I stopped at a Café e Te just across the street to rest my feet since we did not sit down at the Museo de Jambon and I needed to sit, and it was good also to have the tea. Then we came back to the hotel around 10 PM, happy, exhausted and with painful aching feet!!!! Oh well tomorrow is another day!!

First impressions of Madrid after JUST 24 hours – nice city, good people, awaiting more.

Great start to your trip report, I'm looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip.

Janruiz, if you start a new topic to ask your questions, people would have lots of advice for you, but I don't want to break up Flame's trip report by trying to answer all your questions.

Flame what a wonderful stroke of luck about the lunch!
As for the perfume, did you decide it was searched at the airport in Madrid?

Great report easy to follow thank you!

Nikki - thanks for the compliments (and your note to Janruiz - very appropriate!!), I appreciate it.

Amsdon - Yes it truly was something else with lunch at Cubik. However, I must say that even if we had had to pay the normal rate, i.e. 10.50 apiece, it would still have been SOOOO worth it!! The perfume - well, I really don't know where it happened. I can only guess. Since we always start our trip from home and have never been to Madrid, and this is the first time it ever happened, I can only assume it happened there. It was a half bottle, if that helps me feel better, and nothing was taken on the way home, so.......

More soon....

I'm so glad you liked the hotel!! As I said, another couple of friends is staying there the first week of May at my suggestion (I previously recommended a hotel in Paris that they liked, so I felt comfortable offering up the Preciados).

Hi Flame and sf7307,
Have really enjoyed your first installment, nicely done and easy to read, Flame, and that ultra-bargain lunch at Cubik was quite serendipitous! Sorry about the perfume, but at least all the contents of your luggage arrived safely home. Am eager to read more!

sf7307, I took another little tour of the very well run Hotel Preciados just ast week and once again was impressed with the fine price to quality ratio (now, if I could only cure my personal allergy to that area! ). The snazzy Precados is definitely a great bargain these days. Flame, I'm so glad you enjoyed it and that you snagged such a super deal there for your week!

sf7307 - well, next time before going to Paris, I will ask for your recommendations there as well!!

Maribel - Thanks, thanks, thanks. Here below is our second day!!

Day Two
Another good night's sleep and we are off around 8:30 in search of breakfast. Today we used my husband's Madrid guide to do a walking tour they suggested. So we walked down our pedestrian Calle des Preciados to Puerta del Sol and then down Calle Mayor, where we saw a bakery/coffee shop and had a good café con leche and each had an interesting croissant. They bake them right there on the spot and you eat/drink at a counter with the locals. It was very brrrrr cold in the morning so it was good.

Then we walked down Calle Mayor to the Plaza de Mayor where I got some explanations from the book and we did some more walking. Eventually we got a bit lost trying to find a certain church, asking several people and getting different answers. After some time, we just ended up walking around and seeing whatever we happened to fall into. It was still quite cold around 10:45 and I spotted a chocolateria and so we had chocolata. Not with churros but it was still quite a treat. Hot, thick delicious chocolate, just really melted chocolate, not your regular hot chocolate at all. Next to us sat a couple with three young children, all under 10 I think. They had a fabulous time with three chocolatas between them and a huge plate of churros on which they sprinkled powdered sugar. It was not enough for them all so they had ANOTHER plate of churros. While paying for our drinks I saw them slide out a huge plate of swirled churros. Apparently that is how they make them and the waitress then literally takes shears and cuts them into 10- 12 cm sticks. Fun.

Fortified, we were out again and this time walked towards the opera house down yet another pedestrian Calle de Arenal. At its end was the opera house, unappealing entirely in its outwardly look and again yet another plaza which was completely undergoing some kind of constructions work so it was not anything special. A short walk straight down found us in what is billed as the nicest Plaza in Madrid – Plaza de Oriente and indeed it was. A HUGE plaza in front of the Palacio Real which was also huge and a nice place to sit and finally bask in some sun around noon. There are beautiful landscaped gardens and statues and flower beds all around here.

After a long rest and walk all along the Palacio, we found ourselves in front of the Igelsias Almenuda and went inside. We saw their museo which was full of ceremonial robes, religious artifacts, etc. and then walked all the way up to the cupula from where we had a gorgeous view high above the city. However the city does not have spectacular views so while it was nice to get this panoramic view, it did not leave us oohing and aahing. Back down and we were then led into the church itself which was easily THE nicest church I had ever seen. A mixture of old and modern and full of bright colors, ceramics, stained glass, etc. It was very big and not ornate, while still being full of interesting elements and pictures. We sat there for quite some time and I took a million pictures there.

By then it was about 1:30 and time for some lunch. I had seen a Fresco restaurant on the pedestrian Arenal while walking down and told my husband it is a buffet with salads, pastas, etc. and maybe we should try it. After almost 2 full days we were certainly missing our veggies. So we walked in and saw that for 8.95 Euros each we could indeed have our fill of the above, and a drink was also included. So we did. We had fresh veggies and salads, pizza and potatoes, fruit and ice cream. It was terribly crowded though and the first time we were ever in a noisy place here in Madrid , it was filled with youngsters maybe after finishing school and having a lunch there so we decided that it was OK but a one-time adventure there.

We started back up the Arenal street towards another street where there was a special church we wanted to see - Convent of Les Descalzes - but it was already closed for siesta. So we walked up the street, saw some vendors selling beautiful wares but found nothing to buy, and found ourselves right smack on our Preciados street. Finally we are beginning to figure out and get acquainted with the streets. It was a lovely day and around 3 PM when we got back to the hotel.

Another rest and even a short nap and by 6 PM we were having our showers and getting ready for our night out.

We left the room around 8 PM and it was still completely light out !! We walked down our pedestrian street Calle de Preciados, to Puerta del Sol. Crossed over to the other side of the plaza and walked into the Latin quarter . On the way we saw a group of Latinos performers playing great music outside so we stopped and listened a bit.

We found the Café Central that we were going to go to for a live jazz performance in the evening at 10 PM. We thought also to eat there but they were not opening the kitchen for at least another half an hour and also we were not thrilled with their choices. So we told the very nice waiter we would be back later for the show. We walked around some more and the whole area is really very nice and full of places to eat and drink.

We ended up at a very nice and yuppie-like place called Lateral. We were seated and got a menu also in English. My husband started with a nice appetizer of melted brie with salmon on toast and I had finally found the patata and egg Spanish tortilla. They were both good and we had a half bottle of Roija red wine to go with it. My husband continued with the very typical toasted breads with olive oil, salt and pureed tomatoes and I tried the quesadilla with chard, mushroom and melted cheese, also very good. We were quite full even though the portions were not large, and with the wine we paid 23 Euros for this meal. Afterwards we went looking for some ice cream and my husband, who is an ice cream fiend (as well as being a mazapan fiend!!) hit the jackpot at Dolce gelateria where he got caramelized nuts and strawberry shortcake in a cone. I sat and watched him eat, I preferred to get a mochito at the performance later. And meanwhile called both my kids and spoke with each for a while.

At 10 PM we went into the Café Central and were seated, albeit it was already very crowded and eventually got even more crowded. Even though smoking is allowed in these places and many people do smoke, they have apparently gotten smart and even though it is cool/cold outside they put on the a/c so it is quite bearable and you are able to sit for hours and not feel stuffed and in need of air. The show was marvelous, there were 6 performers, mostly on percussion instruments (clarinet, sax, trumpet) but also drums, piano and contrabass. They did more big bands type of music than jazz but we liked it even more. Apparently they were also very funny since in between some of the music they also spoke to the audience and while I understood much more than I thought I would, I still was not that up on the language to know why people were laughing, etc. No matter it was still great and we walked out after midnight when it was finished.

In 15 minutes we were back at the hotel and went to sleep.

SF7307

Enjoying the report and also the memories.
Keep it coming I also especially enjoy the food descriptions.

<i>sf7307 - well, next time before going to Paris, I will ask for your recommendations there as well!!</i>

Don't , because the hotel I recommended in Paris (I know many people who have stayed there over the years) is no longer "good" -- frayed at the edges, I think!

Maribel, thanks for the update!

great report, Flame - we loved Madrid too.

keep it coming,

regards, ann

Day Three

OK today we kinda slept in just a bit, seeing as we had such a late night last night. So we were only out of the hotel around 8:40 AM (lol). We walked down Gran Via and stopped for desayuno (breakfast) at a huge place called Zahara restaurant which reminded me of a Western TV show!! It looked very wild-west-ish and cowboy-ish. After they got BOTH our breakfast requests wrong, they finally broughgt my husband his melted cheese toast with coffee and I had their typical toasted baguette with olive oil, salt and tomato puree with my coffee. Hit the spot.

We continued walking down Gran Via, towards Park Retiro and the Thyssien museum today. We got there exactly at one minute to 10 (they open at 10 AM) and since we had the combined ticket bought at the Prado, we had no lines to wait in. The museum starts from the top floor, chronologically and you work your way down. My husband put it very well when he said "there are mostly works of art here from painters that are "almost there" but not quite made it, or there are works of art of very famous painters which are just not their best works at all". That is exactly correct and exactly also what Maribel quotes in her guide!! With the exception of three very good Chagall works, a nice Georia O'Keefe, maybe a Picasso or Dali, most of the rest were just "OK". That said we did manage to spend an entire 2 hours there and again were not unhappy we did. By 12:15 we were out and making our way back towards the hotel, this time using a different route.

We went down Calle Jeronimo which took us straight towards the Puerta del Sol. On the way we stopped at a theater that advertised a show of Spanish Pop music and my husband was very interested. So we stopped to ask at the ticket counter about it and we may do it one of our free nights later in the week.

We went looking for another recommended restaurant called Cornucopia. We actually managed to find it and it is really close to our hotel. The menu del dia was as usual, a first course, main course, drink, break and desert. As opposed to Cubik, here we did not get the 2 for 1 deal and it was also more expensive to begin with – 11.50 Euros apiece. The food was about on par with Cubik. My husband started with a salad and some interesting combination of cheese balls with strawberry jam (yes strange but good) rolled in sesame. I had the deviled eggs with salmon, tomato and salad. We both had a rolled chicken breast for main with dates and nuts inside on an aioli sauce with rice and a non-descript and not very good apple pie for desert. I had rioja wine and my husband opted for beer. What made the place awful though was that all the waitresses and the people coming out of the kitchen were wearing absolutely FILTHY clothes. I mentioned this to the one waitress who spoke good English when she asked whether we had enjoyed our meal. She seemed very apologetic and thanked me for informing her of how it looks to the customers (what? She does not know this?) and I guess as an apology she invited us for a digestif after our meal of a typical Spanish liquor called Licor de Hyberias. It was quite good and I have to find out exactly what it is made from, will look it up later. (Maribel - for your info - would check this place again sometime and see whether indeed it should be listed as a favorite!!).

We then went back towards our hotel, by way of the dept. store to look for dinner items. I found fresh baguettes, Manchego cheese, rucola and a small jar of mustard. We have free beers and drinks in the room so we are set.

We had a rest and then I made up one of the sandwiches which we split since it was a large baguette, with a beer and a juice. We got dressed and were out towards the same area as last night, stopping OF COURSE once again for yet another ice cream that he loved so much last night. We got to Casa Patas and found a really old-style restaurant with a separate area for the flamenco performance. We were early, as usual, and so had to wait a bit at the bar before we were shown where to pay for the tickets (31 Euros each including the first drink –beer for my husband and sangria for me) and then were brought to our table. It was a relatively small room with small tables and chairs around them. Our name was on the reserved table, as it was on the others too.

There were five members of the "band" and two flamenco dancers, a man and a woman. Two of the five band members also sang, and I use the term loosely because it was more of screeching/yelling but strangely enough it was NOT unpleasant and not bad at all. The dancers were amazing and the entire evening was one of THE most exhilarating experiences of my life. I was so moved and excited from all of it. There was a short break around 9:50 and then another half an hour of the show. So we left around 10:30 and were back at the hotel before 11:00 PM.

Thanks to all who recommended this flamenco venue, it was truly THE BEST!!!

Flame123,

great report, You stayed at the Hotel Preciados and mentioned that drinks are free. Is that customary in Madrid Hotels?

HarryS - not only is it NOT customary in Madrid hotels (it was the only one that offered this when I did my searches for a hotel), I personally have never heard of it before, i.e. never stayed in any hotel anywhere where this was the custom. It was extremely useful and comfortable.

Free? Great!

Glad you enjoyed Casa Patas. Now you know why I encourage travelers to fmailiarize themselves with the sound of real flamenco music before going to a flamenco show. This is not new age stuff, not Otmar (sorry if I offend.)
The closest thing we have to this is perhaps blues and gospel
something that allows improvisation & where the quality of the voice is altogether different.