A week in Madrid is enough to stop being a tourist for a few hours a day. You can see everything the city is famous for by Day 4, which leaves three days for the things that actually make people fall for the place — a second excursion, an afternoon in a market with no plan, a museum revisited because you rushed it the first time.
The trap with seven days is padding. Madrid’s centre is compact and you will run out of headline sights before you run out of days. This plan handles that by pairing each of the later days with a genuine day trip or a neighbourhood, and by building the free-entry windows in deliberately rather than paying €65 in museum admissions you didn’t need to.
Table of Contents
- Before you start: tickets and transport
- Days 1-2: Madrid Essentials
- Day 3: Salamanca + Thyssen
- Day 4: Toledo Day Trip
- Day 5: Segovia + La Granja
- Day 6: Hidden Gems Day
- Day 7: Choose Your Adventure
- Free entry: the full timetable
- Madrid 7 Day Itinerary Budget
- Madrid 7 Day Itinerary Tips
- FAQs
- Plan Your Visit
Before You Start: Tickets and Transport
Over seven days the transport maths shifts in favour of the pass. The Abono Turístico Zone A costs €43.20 for seven consecutive days, covers all Zone A Metro with no airport supplement, every city bus except the Airport Express, Cercanías trains within Zone A and the ML1 tram. Under-11s pay half. Against that, a Tarjeta Multi (€2.50, ten-year life) loaded with 10-trip Metrobús books at €7.30 each works out around 73 cents a journey — so €43.20 buys roughly 59 journeys’ worth. On a week-long stay with an airport arrival and departure, four Metro trips a day gets you to break-even comfortably.
The pass is a personal title and can’t be shared. A Multi card with a 10-trip book on it can be — several people validating consecutively, travelling together on the same journey. For a couple or a family, two Multi cards often beat two tourist passes.
One thing the pass does not cover: Renfe’s regional and high-speed services. Your trains to Toledo and Segovia are separate purchases, and the €3.00 airport supplement only becomes irrelevant if you hold the pass or a Zone A Abono.
Buy the Multi at a Metro machine or an estanco. The transport management offices don’t sell them. CRTM offices at Airport T2 and T4 (daily 08:00–20:00), Sol and Atocha sell the tourist passes.
2026 closure to know about: the Museo Sorolla is shut for a full rehabilitation with no reopening date. It appears in most week-long Madrid itineraries written before 2026. Leave it out.
Days 1-2: Madrid Essentials
Day 1 — the old centre. Puerta del Sol for the kilometre-zero plaque, Plaza Mayor, then down to Mercado de San Miguel for a look rather than a meal. Lunch properly on Calle Cava Baja in La Latina: Taberna La Concha at number 7 for vermouth and a tosta de gambas at €6.00, or Taberna Almendro 13 for huevos rotos, walk-in only, under €15 a head. At weekends Enotaberna del León de Oro at Cava Baja 12 is the one that serves straight through 12:30 to midnight, which matters because much of the street closes between roughly 16:00 and 20:00.
Afternoon at the Royal Palace — €18 self-guided, €9 reduced. The state rooms take about 45 minutes, the Royal Armoury another 30. April to September it opens Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 19:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 16:00. EU citizens and residents and Latin American citizens get in free Monday to Thursday 17:00 to 19:00 (April–September), box office only with ID. Two warnings: it closes at short notice for official ceremonies, and from 20 August 2026 the entrance moved to the Almudena Cathedral esplanade on Plaza de la Armería.
Evening around Plaza de Santa Ana, one street off Huertas. La Venencia at Echegaray 7 pours sherry from the barrel and nothing else — no photographs, no tips, tab chalked on the bar, open 12:30–15:30 and 19:30–00:00. Casa Alberto at Huertas 18, founded 1827 on Cervantes’s old house, bottles its own vermouth; croquetas €7.50, callos €17.00, closed Mondays. Salmón Guru at Echegaray 21 made the World’s 50 Best Bars list and takes no reservations.
Day 2 — the Prado and the Reina Sofía. The Prado is €15, open Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 20:00 and Sunday to 19:00, and doesn’t close weekly. Use one of the museum’s own published one-, two- or three-hour routes instead of drifting: Las Meninas, Goya’s black paintings, the Bosch triptych. Two hours is a real visit. Free the last two hours daily — 18:00–20:00 Monday to Saturday, 17:00–19:00 Sundays and holidays, box office only and capacity-limited.
The Reina Sofía is €12 and holds Guernica, which is larger and quieter in person than you expect. Two hours. Free 19:00 to 21:00 Monday and Wednesday to Saturday, and 12:30 to 14:30 Sunday — ticket still needed, bookable online, individuals only. It closes on Tuesdays, which trips up most visitors. Its own figures put the crowds at 10:00–12:00 and again at 19:00; 14:00 to 18:00 is the quiet stretch.
Walk it off in El Retiro — rowing boats on the lake, the rose garden, the Palacio de Velázquez which reopened in June 2026. The Palacio de Cristal is temporarily closed, so don’t build the walk around it.
Day 3: Salamanca + Thyssen
Morning: the Thyssen-Bornemisza, €14 or €10 reduced. It fills the gaps the Prado and Reina Sofía leave — a private collection turned national, medieval panels down to Hopper and Rothko, arranged top floor to bottom in chronological order. The museum’s own estimate is two and a half hours plus 50 minutes for the ground-floor temporary show, and it’s quietest 14:00 to 16:00.
It’s free on Mondays 12:00 to 16:00 with no ticket at all, and free again Saturdays 21:00 to 23:00 for the ground floor and lower-level temporary exhibitions. September to June it runs Tuesday to Friday 10:00 to 19:00 and Saturday to 23:00; in July and August weekdays extend to 21:00. If your Day 3 is a Monday, note it doesn’t open until noon.
Afternoon: Salamanca. Grid-planned, nineteenth-century, expensive, and the best place in Spain to look at Spanish fashion in one walk. Calle Serrano is the spine. Casa Loewe at Serrano 26 — three floors, and the house was founded in Madrid in 1846, which makes it one of the oldest luxury names in Europe. Adolfo Domínguez at Serrano 5, five floors and his largest Madrid store, built on the slogan la arruga es bella — the wrinkle is beautiful, which tells you everything about his linen. Purificación García at Serrano 28; despite the family history the two labels are commercially unrelated, having split decades ago. Bimba y Lola at Serrano 22 for leather bags, Manolo Blahnik at Serrano 58, and Castañer at Claudio Coello 51, who have been making the wedge espadrille since 1927.
Late afternoon, optional: the Bernabéu. The official product is Tour Bernabéu; “Bernabéu Experience” is a reseller invention. Classic is €37 online or €40 at the box office, Guided €56. Open daily except 25 December and 1 January, Monday to Saturday 09:00 to 19:00, Sunday 09:30 to 18:30. On match days the tour stops five and a half hours before kick-off and the dressing rooms and benches close both that day and the day before — and kick-off times are usually confirmed only two or three weeks ahead, while tickets are non-refundable. The pitch lives underground between matches, so the grass may be absent. Metro line 10, Santiago Bernabéu, subject to the works note below.
Day 4: Toledo Day Trip
Toledo is the best day trip in central Spain: a walled city on a granite hill, once the Visigothic capital, later a place where Christian, Muslim and Jewish craftsmen worked the same streets.
Trains go from Atocha, not Chamartín — every Toledo Avant in both directions uses Madrid-Puerta de Atocha-Almudena Grandes, whatever Renfe’s own route page says. The journey is 34 minutes (Toledo’s tourist board still advertises 25; it’s out of date) and the fare is €13.90 one way on the Básico tier, the same on all thirteen departures. Fifteen trains each way on weekdays, first out 06:45 and last back 21:37; ten each way at weekends.
Book ahead — the 09:15 sells out a day in advance in summer. Renfe added 440 seats a day to this corridor in May 2026, which has helped, but mid-morning is still the pinch point.
From the station it’s about 20 minutes on foot to the old town, up a hill eased by the public escalators at Safont (from 07:00, closing midnight Sunday to Thursday and 02:00 Friday and Saturday). Or buses 5, 511, 61 and 62 to Plaza de Zocodover for €1.40, cash only, and drivers won’t take a note above €5. A taxi is roughly €6.
See the cathedral, the Alcázar, Santo Tomé for El Greco’s Burial of the Count of Orgaz, and the Sinagoga del Tránsito. Eat carcamusas, buy marzipan. The cheap alternative is the ALSA coach from Plaza Elíptica — 83 services a day from €6.55, 50 minutes direct, every half hour.
Day 5: Segovia + La Granja
This is the day that justifies a full week. Trains run Chamartín to Segovia-Guiomar in 25 to 29 minutes, with 26 departures each way on weekdays — first out 06:20, first back 07:00. Renfe publishes no standing fare for this pair, so check the price when you book rather than assuming it matches Toledo’s €13.90.
Guiomar station is well outside town. Two urban bus lines connect it, not one: line 11 (Acueducto ↔ Estación AVE, 14–15 minutes, drops you about 50 metres from the aqueduct, 38 departures each way on weekdays from 06:30 to 22:10) and line 12 (Centro ↔ Estación AVE, 12 minutes, a little further out). The dedicated Billete AVE is €2.25 and children under 14 travel free. The timetable isn’t a clockface — departures run 06:30, 06:50, 07:05, 07:20, 07:35 — because it’s built around train paths rather than round numbers, and in practice a bus reaches the station a few minutes before nearly every departure.
In Segovia: the Roman aqueduct, which is the most spectacular Roman structure in Spain and free to stand under; the Alcázar; the cathedral; and cochinillo asado if you eat pork. Tickets to Segovia on Renfe include a free Combinado Cercanías connecting journey.
Adding La Granja. The Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso is 20 to 25 minutes from Segovia’s bus station on the Linecar M-8, running about every 45 minutes on weekdays (first 06:45, last 21:45), with twelve services on Saturdays and eight on Sundays and holidays. There is no direct service from Madrid — every route changes in Segovia, so realistically an hour and a half to two hours each way.
The palace is €9 general, €4 reduced, plus a €0.77 online fee; a guided visit is €17 and a combined palace-plus-Real Fábrica de Cristales ticket €15. Open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 19:00 April to September and to 18:00 October to March, closed Mondays all year, last access an hour before closing. EU and Ibero-American visitors get in free Wednesdays and Sundays 15:00 to 18:00 October to March and 15:00 to 19:00 April to September, with ID at the box office — though note the official price resolution gives 16:00 rather than 15:00 for the summer window, so the two government documents disagree. The gardens are free every day, 10:00 to 21:00 in July and August.
Two 2026 specifics worth knowing before you build a day around the fountains: the palace was closed all day on 25 August 2026, and every nocturnal fountain display scheduled for August 2026 was cancelled for water scarcity, along with the special all-fountains illumination on the 25th, with refunds issued. Normal pricing is €5 for the daytime display and €3 for the Baños de Diana at night. The Museo de Tapices has also closed, replaced by three new rooms of Felipe V and Isabel de Farnesio paintings.
Combining both in a day works only with an early train, and you have to watch the M-8’s 45-minute headway against the palace’s last admission. If that sounds tight, do Segovia on Day 5 and La Granja on Day 7.
Day 6: Hidden Gems Day
Museo Cerralbo, €3, is the best-value ticket in the city — a nineteenth-century marquess’s mansion preserved exactly as he arranged it, armour and clocks and a mirrored ballroom. Tuesday to Saturday 09:30 to 15:00 plus Thursdays 17:00 to 20:00, Sundays 10:00 to 15:00, closed every Monday including bank holidays, last access an hour before closing, and no advance tickets are sold at all. Free Thursday evenings from 17:00 and free all day Sunday.
Museo Arqueológico Nacional, also €3 — Iberian, Roman, Visigothic and Islamic Spain, and the Lady of Elche. Tuesday to Saturday 09:30 to 20:00, Sunday 09:30 to 15:00, closed every Monday of the year. Free Saturday afternoons from 14:00 and Sunday mornings. The museum currently warns it can’t guarantee all galleries are open at normal hours.
Then pick a neighbourhood and stop planning. Malasaña for vintage — the real cluster is on Velarde, Espíritu Santo, San Joaquín and Corredera Alta de San Pablo, not on Fuencarral, which is the pedestrianised chain-store strip. Magpie Vintage at Velarde 3 has been going fifteen years, garments from about €3, Monday to Saturday 11:30 to 21:00, closed Sunday. Flamingos Vintage Kilo at San Joaquín 16 sells by weight. Drink at Casa Camacho, San Andrés 4, where the order is a “yayo” — soda, vermouth and gin from taps installed in the 1920s — Monday to Saturday 12:30 to 02:00, closed Sunday. Or La Vía Láctea at Velarde 18, a survivor of La Movida, free entry.
Chueca for boutiques and food. Mercado de San Antón at Augusto Figueroa 24 runs over three floors: fresh produce and tapas on the first, about ten show-cooking stalls on the second (noon to midnight), and a rooftop restaurant-terrace on the third open 13:00 to 01:00. Augusto Figueroa is still the shoe street — past-season designer stock at outlet prices — though it has diversified a lot, and the market is now its biggest draw.
Day 7: Choose Your Adventure
Four honest options, depending on what the week has left you wanting.
If it’s a Sunday: El Rastro. The flea market runs Sundays and public holidays 09:00 to 15:00 with over a thousand traders, hub at Plaza de Cascorro, spine down Ribera de Curtidores. Metro La Latina or Tirso de Molina to start at Cascorro, or Embajadores to walk up the hill. Be there by 09:30 — from about noon the main run is too crowded to browse. Then vermouth, which is the actual point of a Madrid Sunday: Casa Amadeo “Los Caracoles” on Plaza de Cascorro since 1942 (caracoles €14.00, rabo de toro €15.50), El Capricho Extremeño at Carlos Arniches 30 from 08:00, La Bobia at San Millán 3 which Almodóvar used, or Taberna Antonio Sánchez on Mesón de Paredes, documented before February 1787 and never renovated. Note that roughly 16:00 to 20:00 much of Cava Baja shuts; Delic on Plaza de la Paja runs to 02:00 and covers the gap.
If you want a second excursion: Alcalá de Henares, Cervantes’s birthplace and a UNESCO university town, is reachable on Cercanías lines C-2 and C-7 — and unlike Toledo or Segovia it’s inside the Cercanías network, so a Zone T tourist pass covers it.
If you under-served a museum: go back. The Prado on a second visit, with one wing and no agenda, is a better experience than the first sprint. Reina Sofía two-visit tickets cost €18 and stay valid a year.
If you just want to enjoy the city: the Templo de Debod at sunset — a real Egyptian temple, gifted to Spain and rebuilt on a rise west of the centre — then a rooftop. El Viajero on Plaza de la Cebada has the best-known terrace in La Latina, Tuesday and Wednesday noon to 01:00 and Thursday and Friday to 02:00.
Free Entry: The Full Timetable
- Prado — last two hours daily: 18:00–20:00 Mon–Sat, 17:00–19:00 Sun/holidays. Box office only, capacity-limited.
- Reina Sofía — 19:00–21:00 Mon and Wed–Sat; 12:30–14:30 Sun. Free ticket required, bookable online. Closed Tuesdays.
- Thyssen — Mon 12:00–16:00, no ticket needed; Sat 21:00–23:00 for ground floor and lower-level temporary shows.
- Royal Palace — EU citizens/residents and Latin American citizens, Mon–Thu 17:00–19:00 (Apr–Sep) or 16:00–18:00 (Oct–Mar). ID, box office, self-guided.
- Cerralbo — Thu 17:00–19:00 (non-holiday) and all day Sunday.
- Archaeological Museum — Sat 14:00–20:00 (non-holiday) and Sun 09:30–15:00.
- La Granja — Wed and Sun afternoons for EU and Ibero-American visitors.
Over seven days you can see all six Madrid institutions above for nothing if you’re willing to shape your days around the windows. Sunday is the strongest free day; Monday closes the two small state museums but opens the Thyssen for free.
Madrid 7 Day Itinerary Budget
- Transport — 7-day Zone A tourist pass €43.20, or Multi card €2.50 plus three 10-trip books €21.90
- Museums at full price — Prado €15, Reina Sofía €12, Thyssen €14, Royal Palace €18, Cerralbo €3, MAN €3 = €65. Paseo del Arte card cuts the first three to €32.80. Free windows cut all six to €0.
- Toledo — €27.80 return by train plus €2.80 local buses, or €13.10 return by coach
- Segovia — train fare to confirm at booking, plus €4.50 return on the Guiomar bus
- La Granja — €9 palace, gardens free, M-8 bus fare to confirm locally
- Bernabéu — €37 online
- Food — €12–20 a head for tapas lunches at the places named here, €25–40 for a sit-down dinner. A caña runs about €2.90 in a normal bar, over €4 in tourist zones; under €2.20 is getting hard to find.
A moderate seven days lands around €380–450 per person before flights and accommodation. Lean on the free windows, take coaches instead of trains and skip the stadium and you can do the same week for roughly €180.
Madrid 7 Day Itinerary Tips
Check Metro works before committing a day to a line. Madrid does its engineering in August, and 2026 was heavy: line 6 closed Argüelles to Ciudad Universitaria including Moncloa from 1 August to 2 September; line 7 closed Gregorio Marañón to Pitis 2 to 28 August; line 10 closed Nuevos Ministerios to Plaza de Castilla until 21 August while Santiago Bernabéu station was refurbished, with Cuzco shut to the end of the month. Free replacement buses ran throughout. The Moncloa closure matters on this itinerary because the Avanza coach to Segovia leaves from there.
Metro hours are 06:00 to 01:30, daily, and it never runs through the night — not even on New Year’s Eve. After that it’s the búho night buses, almost all of which leave from Plaza de Cibeles, every 35 minutes Sunday to Thursday and every 17 or 18 minutes Friday and Saturday. A Metro single is not valid on them: pay €1.50 cash, or use a Metrobús book, Abono or tourist pass. There is no night Cercanías service at all.
Getting to and from the airport late. Metro line 8 stops at 01:30. The Exprés Aeropuerto bus (line 203) runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, €5.00 paid on board, every 15 minutes from 06:00 to 23:30 and every 35 minutes overnight — and at night its city terminus is Cibeles, not Atocha. A taxi is a flat €33.00 between the airport and anywhere inside the M-30, at any hour, and that flat fare admits no supplements whatsoever.
Pace the museums. Seven days is enough to do one major museum a day rather than two. The temptation is to front-load and then have nothing left; resist it.
Eat on Spanish time. Lunch 14:00 to 15:30, dinner rarely before 21:30. Kitchens must legally close by 02:00, or 02:30 Fridays and Saturdays.
Weather and season. August averages 31.3°C by day and 18.8°C at night at the Retiro station, with under two rain days; September drops to 26.4°C and 15.4°C with about three. September is the better week if you can choose. Keep 14:00 to 18:00 for air-conditioned things — conveniently the quietest hours at both the Reina Sofía and the Thyssen.
Late-summer holidays and fiestas. The only public holiday in August or September 2026 was Saturday 15 August, and Madrid has no September holiday at all. The neighbourhood fiestas are worth timing for or around: San Cayetano 4–7 August, San Lorenzo 8–11 August, and La Virgen de la Paloma 13–16 August, whose main day on the 15th makes La Latina very crowded. In September, La Melonera runs 1–7 September in Arganzuela and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 14–19 September at IFEMA.
If something goes wrong. Madrid’s tourist emergency service is no longer at the Leganitos police station — guides still sending you there are out of date. Since 2025 it runs from the municipal tourist information points, principally Plaza Mayor 27, daily 10:00 to 20:00, tel 91 578 78 10. They help with police reports, replacing documents, embassies and cancelling cards, and the 2026 service charter added a free one-day transport pass for a crime victim left without means of payment. Emergencies: 112. City information: 010.
FAQs
Is a week too long in Madrid? Not if you use two of the days for excursions. The city centre’s headline sights take about four days; Toledo, Segovia and La Granja comfortably absorb the rest, and all three are properly worth the journey.
Should I buy the 7-day tourist pass? At four or more Metro journeys a day, yes — €43.20 against roughly 59 journeys’ worth of 10-trip tickets, and it removes the €3.00 airport supplement. If you walk everywhere and use the Metro twice a day, a Multi card with 10-trip books is cheaper and can be shared.
Can I do Segovia and La Granja in one day? Yes, but only with an early train, and you need to check the M-8’s roughly 45-minute headway against the palace’s last admission an hour before closing. Splitting them across Days 5 and 7 is more relaxed.
Which days do museums close? Reina Sofía closes Tuesdays. Cerralbo and the Archaeological Museum close every Monday. La Granja closes Mondays. The Prado, Thyssen and Royal Palace don’t close weekly, though the Thyssen only opens noon to 16:00 on Mondays.
Do the trains to Toledo and Segovia leave from the same station? No, and this catches people out. Toledo goes from Atocha; Segovia goes from Chamartín. They’re on opposite sides of the city, about 20 minutes apart on Cercanías.
Is the Bernabéu tour worth €37? If you follow football, yes. If you don’t, spend the afternoon in Malasaña instead. Be aware the pitch may be underground and the dressing rooms shut if there’s a home fixture within a day.
How much cash should I carry? More than you’d expect. Toledo’s city buses are cash-only and won’t break a €5 note; several of the older taverns chalk tabs rather than card; and Madrid venues are legally obliged to accept cash, which cuts both ways.
Plan Your Visit
Book three things before you fly: the Toledo train, the Segovia train, and the Bernabéu tour if you want it. Check whether Day 2 lands on a Tuesday, and whether Day 6 lands on a Monday. Everything else here can be decided over breakfast.
For depth on the individual pieces, see our guides to getting around Madrid, the museums, day trips, the neighbourhoods and what a trip actually costs. Shorter stays are covered by the five-day itinerary and the three-day plan.