Madrid

Rich in culture and tradition, teeming with tapas bars, and boasting a bustling nightlife, Madrid is a world-class capital city with a great deal to offer its visitors. Madrid features a mix of the classic and the modern from its architecture to its attractions. Madrid is well known on the tourist travel map for its celebratory environment with its rich cultural environment. Centrally located on the Iberian Peninsula, this city is home to roughly three million residents and serves as the headquarters to government institutions and organizations. It's a city of restaurants, attractions, live music venues, and locals are known for exhibiting a high quality of life.

Madrid is a modern capital city, renowned for its vibrant culture and entertaining options from its restaurant, bar and café scene to live music, dancing and abounding with attractions from parks and churches to museums and shopping. As the center of the Spanish Empire for many centuries, Madrid's culture is dominated by its royal history with its many palaces and official buildings.

Madrid is famous for its climatic extremes. Although it tends to be sunny all year-round, it can be freezing in winter and is always extremely hot in summer, when the locals who are known as Madrileños take a break from the heat in the mid-day during the typical siestas. It's common for businesses to close down during this time.

Madrid is a manageable city to traverse and boasts plenty of public transportation frequently used by locals and visitors alike, including the metro and buses. The heart of the city is at the Puerta del Sol. This plaza is a true hub for activity, especially for tourists as many tours, guides, and transportation embark from here.

As with most of European's most cosmopolitan cities, Madrid is home to many great museums, many of which are in the city's core museum district known as Museum Triangle at Paseo del Prado. As a day of touring ends, visitors to Madrid must try the famed tapas-style of eating. Do as the Spanish do and wander slowly from bar to bar, sharing just one or two dishes in each. Good areas for tapas-grazing include La Latina (wander from Cava Baja towards Plaza de la Cebada) and the side streets off Plaza Santa Ana. Madrid's nightlife is considered some of the best in Europe and so Madrid is a city that has much to offer for all types of visitors from dawn to dawn.