A TASTE OF MADRID

British

I am just at the end of 4 days in Madrid, so thought I would post bits of information for anyone booked on the Portugal and Spain tour
A beautiful city, an architectural delight.
We spent 6 hours at the Prado Museum, just about glanced at every painting, we did not stop at every piece of religious art because it's not to our taste, so that speeded up the pace at times, but it was wonderful. The paintings are just wonderful, many are huge paintings, the place just takes your breath away.
And guess what, didn't we run into a Tauck tour going around! The giveaway was that several people had Tauck lanyards round their necks, never seen these before.
Tip, there is a decent cafe and restaurant, when you get there, the sign is confusing. If you pass the line for Cafe and go to the other end, there is a hot meal choice and the line is much shorter, I think because people don't realise it is there. There was also a choice of a small cheese or cold meats platter, we shared, it was a good way to taste five or six cheeses and three meats, I am sure our cholesterols loved it.
If you chose to go to the Prado on another day if you extend your tour, if you buy the $14 ticket but ask for a tour guidebook that has about 400 pictures in it, you will be given a ticket for $23 instead and that will get you the $19-95 guide book as well as entrance at the museum. Get your book with the ticket at the gift shop. Or ask the Tauck tour guide what type of ticket Tauck provides and see if you can get the deal that way.
Thyssen-Bornemisza museum, also takes about four of five hours to go round. Restaurant has very good meal choices
Royal palace, this is sumptuous and has a good gift shop. Small cafe, ok for a quick bite, but the most basic of the restaurants I have mentioned.
Taxis, plenty of taxis around, I got one immediately I wanted one wherever I was and they take credit cards.
Credit cards--- I used an Amex that was chip and sign and a MasterCard with no chip, had no trouble at all but you have to tell wherever you are using that it is not a pin card. We called Mastercard before we left home to tell them where we would be traveling and when and they still tried to cancel the card because I used it for a couple of low amounts, thank goodness my husband saw the email and called to say it was me using the card on my own in the city. Amex do not require you to call when you travel.
The Parque De El Retiro is a beautiful park that is right by the Prado, it certainly rivals Central Park. There is a Crystal Palace based on the one that contained the great exhibition in London in 1851. A huge Monument to Alfonso X11 and boating lake. Also. Gorgeous Rose Garden, shaded walkways, lots of outdoor refreshment areas, a lovely way to spend a late afternoon when you are museumed out.
Phone service--- we called AT and T before we left home and arranged a month of international plan for $30 each which included data, email phone and text. It has worked well, we have made calls to each other and texted to England, used google maps for walking directions and checked email.
That's all I can think of for now, the Tauck tour I would love to do in the future.

jdurkin

Great info, British. Could I please get you to clarify the bit about the ticket to the Prado ... before you forget. And could you give the generic cost .. i.e. in Euros ... so those of us who don't use greenbacks in daily life can work out what's what?

Cheers,

Jan

British

Made a couple of mistakes. I was talking dollars when I should have said Euros. Sorry,
Currently entry price is 14 Euros if you pay 23 euros you get the large guidebook too. The guidebook alone is 19-99 Euros

jdurkin

Gottcha!

Cheers,

Jan

SororityChick

Just got home from the 2 week Portugal and Spain Tauck Tour and we had free tickets to both museums you mentioned and the Prado included a wonderful 90 minute guided tour. We stayed for lunch-not as much choice for light lunch but we did get individual quiches. Then continued on our own through the rest of the Prado.

After a short siesta we went back across the street to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. It was wonderful, a private collection of hundreds of art works from famous artists. The museum was air conditioned and not overly crowded. It had a much better cafeteria than the Prado.

British

I am going to post a separate report about Madrid airport that I more or less finished, see if you agree or could add more tips, best wishes, British