How about visiting Madrid with me?
You can reach the centre of the city "Plaza de Espana" area by paying 5 Euros within 20-30 minutes depending on the density by metro. This place is literally like Beyoglu in Istanbul and Kızılay in Ankara. From here you can walk to the hotels where you will stay. You can easily reach many points you can visit in the city centre via the very wide boulevard called "Grand Via".
Madrid, one of the most populous cities in Europe, is the capital of Spain and is located in the central part of the Iberian peninsula and Spain. For this reason, I personally compare Madrid to Ankara and Barcelona to Istanbul. However, it is one of the few urban centres of the world that has a more and more crowded population day by day in a geography that has different cultural, geographical and political differences and separations such as Basque Country, Catalan Region, etc., which have different cultures and deep-rooted distinctions.
Madrid Barajacas Airport is a major transport and transfer point built on a very large land. Due to its geographical and historical ties, it is an important transit hub especially for South American countries. As a general practice, if the aircraft arriving for landing and take-off do not belong to Spain, you can be sure that you will witness long landing and take-off taxi times. For this reason, it is useful to be prepared for the aircraft to move on the ground for up to 20-30 minutes after landing or on the way to take-off.
On arrival, the police officers may exhibit very inhospitable behaviour by controlling the planes coming from our country at the exit of the bellows. Afterwards, you need to consider the waiting time of the Spaniards in a separate queue, the European Union citizens in a separate queue and finally us in the other queue for about 30 minutes. From the moment you get off the plane, you should be prepared for all conversations to be in Spanish wherever you are. You will not find English menus in restaurants, so you may need online dictionaries. I would also like to point out that the staff you may encounter in these places will not endeavour to help you if you do not speak Spanish.
If the hotel where you will stay is in the city centre and you are planning to take a taxi, you should include in your plans that you will pay a taxi fare of approximately 60-80 dollars, depending on the traffic time of approximately 45-60 minutes. If you prefer to take the metro, which has a wide network in the city, you can reach the metro departure area by walking bands between the terminals (T1-T2-T3-T4) in about 20 minutes. If you will use the metro again on your way back, you need to take the elapsed time into your calculations, otherwise it is possible to miss your flight.
You can reach the centre of the city, "Plaza de Espana", within 20-30 minutes, depending on the density, by paying 5 Euros. This place is literally like Beyoglu in Istanbul and Kızılay in Ankara. From here you can walk to the hotels where you will stay. You can easily reach many points you can visit in the city centre via the very wide boulevard called "Grand Via". For this reason, I strongly recommend you to download the metro map of the city centre to your phone before your trip. You can also find the opportunity to get help by showing the stop names in Spanish to the people on the road.
If you want to enjoy the city of Madrid on foot, I can recommend you to come in May or September-October. The really hot weather conditions in June, July and August can seriously affect your plans for sightseeing on foot. When you add to this the crowds of tourists from all over the world, the pleasure you will get may be reduced. Serious crowds of people will make you feel immediately in every region of the city.
In general, the check-in procedures of the hotels in the city take place around 15:00 and the check-out procedures take place around 12:00 locally. Almost all hotels work with a pre-made and paid reservation system. Instead of cash, payment by credit card is insistently requested even in boutique hotels. Most of the hotels in the city centre have a maximum size of 20-25 rooms and 3 stars. Even hotels at this level are approximately 150-200 Euros per night, and early booking will give you a financial advantage. Hygiene is at a medium level in hotel services with limited breakfast and internet service. If you want to experience the streets of Madrid on foot, I can recommend such hotels. In this way, you will be able to both shop and meet your other needs easily.
Coffee (espresso) and croissants are generally popular for breakfast here. I highly recommend the tomato juice served in a thick consistency at breakfast in your hotel. You will not find many options other than very soft, creamy feta cheese. Some hotels may offer boiled or cracked/ scrambled eggs. Open buffet breakfast option is not offered to the customer except for certain hotels. Almost every meat and sausage option consists of pork products.
However, if you like coffee, all kinds of coffee are offered to customers in a rich way. If you insist on drinking tea, you can request black or green tea in Spanish from the staff.
If you have not visited the city before, you will need at least 3 days. If you insist on pleasant eating and drinking activities like me, you can increase this period to 5 days. You should allocate one full day to the Royal Palace in the city centre and the Palace Garden, which is heavily used by the public. To see the places that can be visited in the Palace, which is still in use by the King and his family, 10 Euros per person and a long waiting queue will be ready for you. If you do this waiting in a very hot but not humid season, what I want to say will be better understood. You can visit the palace garden at any time you want until 21:00 without paying a fee and you can have very pleasant moments.
As you pass from this area to Plaza De Espana and Grand Via, you can see the statue of the famous writer Cervantes' Don Quixote characters and the beauties around them in a large inner city park. From here, you can admire the architectural structures of the Grand Via with a long walking path. In these historical buildings, which are generally dominated by white colour, there is also the Central Bank, which is still in use. Numerous large and small tile-coloured historical churches are waiting for you to visit in the side streets as your bonus. Along the way, street performers will expect tips from you with their different performances.
You should also devote one full day to the Plaza Mayor, the old municipality (Senate Building) and the courtyard where it hosts all kinds of events and is surrounded by countless restaurants and cafes. If you carry out your eating and drinking activities here without time constraints, the pleasure you will get will be unlimited at the same rate. There are many large and small shops outside the courtyard where you can shop for local products. For tapas (Spanish appetisers), which I strongly recommend you to try when you come here, a large covered bazaar is one of the places I enjoy the most. Here, which is a large covered bazaar, you can buy the tapas (appetisers) you want from the shops on the sides and taste them with your drink at the cocktail tables in the middle. In this place, which is always very crowded, you will be able to enjoy the joyful laughter of the people.
Puerto de Sol square, which you will pass through on your way to this area, will definitely impress you with its colourful ambiance and its feature of having heavy human traffic day and night. The music halls and entertainment venues on the Grand Via are waiting for you with the most colourful images of night life. When I see people waiting in long queues for cinema and other shows, I suddenly feel myself in the New York Times Square area. You can easily observe an intense entertainment activity especially by young people here. Many museums in the city centre, which you can choose according to your field of interest, can also be included in your travel plans.
The most well-known dish of Spanish cuisine, which is very colourful in terms of food and beverage culture, is "Paela", which is made in all kinds. "Paela", which is actually a type of rice, can be served with seafood, chicken and meat or a combination of these. While travelling on the road, you can find advertisements for touristic purposes in many places. If you prefer this product with the locals in small places in the back and side streets instead of the main streets, you can enjoy it more. However, the other eating and drinking place that I would highly recommend to you when you come here is the delicatessen chain with many branches in the city centre called "Jamon Museum". When you enter here, you can taste cheese varieties, meat of the day (often well-cooked veal) or chicken potato salad, squid and prawns stewed in cress oil, etc. with your drink around a bar standing in the centre. The only feature of this place, which is offered to customers at very cheap prices, is standing. Sometimes you have to stand for hours during eating and drinking activities. When you leave there, the people waiting behind you are moving in an intense effort to grab the place immediately. The seating areas on the upper floor serve in the style of a normal restaurant and are not popular with locals except for tourist groups.
This is all I will tell you about the centre of Madrid for now. I wish you a pleasant trip.
