We will be exploring Spain later this month (2/02) and will be staying in Madrid for two days/nights...and I need help deciding some issues...<BR><BR>...has anyone stayed in a moderately priced hotel (not necessarily anything fancy) that they can recommend? (Perhaps located near to public transportation.)<BR><BR>...any thoughts on unique "must sees ?"<BR><BR>...and a tougher one...any restaurants that you may have come across with a significant number of vegetarian food choices?<BR><BR>...thanks...I look forward to hearing about your Spain experiences!<BR><BR>p.s. we are also traveling to Menorca, Malaga, Gibraltar, and Tangier.

Madrid<BR>We stayed at the Hotel Paris (tel.521 64 96 which is centrally situated right on the Puerta del Sol (lots of tapas bars in streets and little streets around)<BR>Good websites include:http://malika.iem.csic.es/~grant/madi.html<BR>www.spaintour.com/madrid.htm<BR>we're veggies and had no problem avoiding meat- lots of fish and vegetable dishes. Try La Sanabresa Calle Amor de Dios or Viuda de Vacas in Cava Alto

My husband is a strict veggie..no meat, eggs, seafood, etc. He had no problem in Madrid. You will have no problem finding veggie food.<BR><BR>We spent 4 days in Madrid and did all the typical tourist things...Prado, Reina Sophia, etc. We also had time to visit other museums. I thought that the archeology museum was fantastic. <BR><BR>Also, the clothing in Madrid was beautiful and well-made and very inexpensive compared to US prices.<BR><BR>

For more information about Madrid and vegetarian restaurants, go to http://www.madridman.com/ and check out the message boards. There are several threads about vegetarian restaurants. The site has a good search engine. I have found the people on this site to be very knowledgable and have enjoyed all of their recommendations.

I wish I could help you but instead I will ask you to help me. I and a friend are going to Madrid, Seville, coast line, and Barcelona in May. Anything you can help us with after you learn it all on your trip would be appreciated. We are not veggies but could use all other help. Thanks

Try the Tryp hotels on the Gran V&iacute;a. We found them to be clean, have a great breakfast buffet and superb location. Just down the street is the Callao metro stop. Use the subway!!! Plus, the Plaza de Callao is a short walk to the Plaza Mayor, a great area for people watching and tapas-consuming.

Hi Trixie, here's two places where we enjoyed great vegetarian food:<BR><BR>La Trucha - C. Nu&ntilde;ez de Arce (near la Puerta del Sol). Not a vegetarian restaurant, but they had tons of vegetarian tapas.<BR><BR>El Estrag&oacute;n - Pl. de la Paja (uphill off C. Segovia, facing La Capilla del Obispo). This was a real vegetarian restaurant.<BR><BR>Fortunately, you can build a meal in any restaurant in Spain from "staple" tapas - cheese, olives, potato omelette (tortilla espa&ntilde;ola), etc.

I also used this site when planning my trip to Madrid:<BR><BR>http://www.madridman.com<BR><BR>We stayed at Hostel Lopez which was right near the Prado. The hotel was extremely inexpensive ($40 night) and we had our own private bath which had just been remodeled. Very nice. Senora Lopez is extremely nice!<BR><BR>The Parc Rialto, Prado, Plaza del Sol and Plaza del Mayor for people watching, wandering the gorgeous streets and exploring the neighborhoods were my favorite things in Madrid.

Another vote for the vegetarian restaurant, El Estragon. Also the vegetarian Artemisa, on Ventura de la Vega #4. And Gula-Gula has a big mid-day, fixed price buffet with many salad choices. And as Mariarosa says, you can feast on many veggie tapas-others are "patatas a la brava" (roasted potatoes in a spicy sauce), "ensaladilla rusa" (a potato salad, but it does have tuna), red peppers, "champinones al ajillo" (mushrooms in garlic sauce) and in restaurants, order the "pisto manchego", the Spanish version of ratatouille.

...thanks for all for the great suggestions...we've never had bad luck finding vegetarian fare in Europe before, but somebody said a sarcastic "good luck" to me about finding veggie food in Spain...now I am comfortably reassured...we can't wait for our trip!...<BR - Trixie

We leave in 6 days...any last thoughts...<BR><BR>Thanks!

Please post how it goes in madrid, I'll be there the same amount of time in two weeks

I will be sure to post how it goes...if I forget e-mail me at the Yahoo address and I should be able to respond...<BR>

We stayed at the Hotel Mora in Sept 2000. It is directly across the street from the Prado museum and close to public transportation. If I remember, it was about $50/night with nice rooms. There is a nice rest attached for breakfasts if you wish.<BR>