2 Days in Madrid, Spain

This is my experience I had for 2 days in Madrid, Spain. Since I needed to catch a flight to Eastern Europe, it happened that the only flight was out of Madrid with a connection in London. Since I was in the southern most point of Spain, it turned out to be the longest 40 hours of travel starting with 3 hours in a car to Malaga, 6 hours by bus to Madrid with a one night stopover then a flight the next night to London. So much for an easy and cheap flight!

Common Street View in Madrid

Worlds Oldest Running Restaurant since 1725. Hemingway frequented this place.

So, instead of combining all that in one long day, I decided to stay a 2 days in Madrid and sight-see the next day to conclude my roughly 3 weeks in Spain. Madrid was actually a lot cleaner and nicer that I thought it would be since its such a big city and seemed to have a bit of history around every corner.

So what can you see in 2 days in Madrid? Since I had only a little bit of time to really get to know the city, I opted to go on a walking tour with a couple friends I had met the night before. It started in the Plaza Mayor which is actually where my hostel was located. This photo below is from my hostel’s fourth floor terrace overlooking the courtyard.

The Plaza Mayor

The plaza had many uses in its earlier days and served as a place for bullfights, markets, riots and even public executions…. but is now just  home to several restaurants and street performers (some annoying, some talented) that seem to try and grab tourists’ attention 24 hours a day.

Our first stop on the tour was the Almundena Cathedral. Construction on it began back in the  late 1800’s but didn’t actually get completed until 1993 mainly due to the Spanish Civil War causing its delay.

I thought I would add a picture on here showing the interior of the Church just to give an impression of the sheer scale of the columns rising up.

Notice the size of the woman beside the column on bottom right

Our next stop was the Royal Palace of Madrid. As the largest palace in all of Europe it is still used by the King of Spain but only for ceremonies as his Royal Family now resides elsewhere. Since I was on a walking tour that day, we did not go in but from what I was told, visitors see about 50 of its 2800 rooms and with only a day in Spain I decided not to venture back  in later.

The Royal Palace of Madrid

And our last stop was the Puerta del Sol which means ‘Gate of the Sun’. It not only marks the center of Madrid but is said to be the absolute center point for all of Spain and is supposedly what is used to calculate all distances throughout the rest of the country from this one center point (using extremely long tape measures of course). The streets that run off from its center are aligned in a semi-circle and are said to reflect the rays of the sun.

The Absolute Center Point in Spain

After my tour, I spent a bit more time wandering the streets and finally tried my first plate of Churros which is essentially a fried dough which you dip into a cup of chocolate that comes with it.

An order of Churros (and my lunch for that day)

Should you have chocolate left over after eating your Churros, feel free to just drink the chocolate as I did. It is extremely healthy for you and is said to help promote good skin tone.

So all in all, it definitely would have been good to have a few more days here but 2 days in Madrid was better than no days and my flight was booked for 7am the next morning so I was off…. However, if you have the chance to book some cheap tickets with a stop over flight in Madrid, be sure to spend as long as you can! This city is definitely amazing and worth some travel time…