New to Madrid, or hosting family from home? Start here. These are the places we send every family first: big parks where kids run free, museums that hold their attention, a palace full of real armor, a hall of dinosaurs, and thick hot chocolate with churros. Here's what we checked, from rowing on the Retiro lake to a day under Segovia's Roman aqueduct.
El Retiro spreads 125 hectares of lawns, shady paths and formal gardens around a big rowing lake, watched over by the Alfonso XII monument. Kids hunt for the Fallen Angel statue, peer into the restored Monkey Pit from the old royal menagerie, and watch puppets at the Teatro de Títeres. Playgrounds of different sizes are spread through the park, and the wide paved paths suit scooters, skates and bikes.
The largest royal palace in Western Europe has more than 3,000 rooms, and the self-guided route through the state halls takes in the grand staircase, the Throne Room, the Gasparini Room, the gala dining room and the Royal Chapel. Across the Plaza de la Armería courtyard, the Royal Armory holds the personal armor of Emperor Charles V and King Philip II, with knights mounted on armored horses.
Madrid Río runs more than 10 km along the Manzanares, on land freed up when the M-30 ring road went underground. Kids get 17 play areas built from wood and hemp rope, with spider webs, hanging bridges and a big zip line, plus a hill of giant slides and a summer splash beach. Car-free paths suit bikes and scooters, and birds and fish are back in the river.
This is one of the oldest natural history museums in the world, split into a geology wing and a biology wing. The fossil hall holds Dippy, a Diplodocus cast that arrived in 1913, beside the Megatherium giant ground sloth and a replica of Lucy. The Biodiversity hall, signed in Spanish and English, has a 21-meter fin whale skeleton, an African elephant and extinct animals like the Tasmanian tiger.
Animals from five continents share the zoo, including giant pandas, koalas, Sumatran elephants and white rhinos. The glass-pyramid aquarium, Spain's first tropical marine aquarium when it opened in 1995, holds about 330 species, two 18-meter walk-through tunnels and a shark tank. Sea lions Tau, Carlota and Saba star in a short daily demo, and a small train loops past the pandas, meerkats and lemurs.
Spain's national art museum holds Velázquez's Las Meninas, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and Goya's Saturn. For kids, the Prado's own children's itinerary follows Infanta Margarita, the girl at the center of Las Meninas, and her friends through nine paintings, with free audio and short videos on the museum website. Holiday weekends add family workshops in the galleries.
A chocolate café down a narrow passageway between Puerta del Sol and the Teatro Real, frying churros since 1894. Two floors of white marble tables and a tiled counter, with porras (thicker churros) and cakes too.
Kids dunk churros into cups of thick hot chocolate, a warm stop on a cold walk through the center. A sister shop across the square sells truffles and ice cream to take away.
A real Egyptian temple, built more than 2,200 years ago for Amun and Isis, rescued from the rising Nile and given to Spain in 1968 for its help saving the Abu Simbel temples. Inside are small, dim rooms with carved reliefs and a low-ceilinged terrace level. Outside, it stands over a pool, a short walk from Plaza de España.
The tour starts in the Real Madrid museum, an interactive, audiovisual walk past the club's trophies, including all 15 European Cups. From the third-tier stands, kids look down over the renovated stadium, then walk through the First Team dressing room and sit in the dugouts beside the pitch. Photo spots put them next to a favorite player or the Champions League trophy, and the route ends in the official store.
Rides range from Abismo, one of the fastest roller coasters in the world at 105 km/h, to Tornado, an inverted coaster where legs dangle, and Star Flyer, the park's tallest ride, a chain swing with views across the city. Nickelodeon Land is the younger kids' zone, with a Paw Patrol roller coaster, Rugrats bumper cars, a Ninja Turtles driving school and SpongeBob's Splash Bash, where riders fire water.
Casa de Campo is the city's biggest park: 1,535 hectares of pine and oak woodland west of the river. Families come for the lake, where you can rent a rowing boat, and for a string of play areas with a castle, a pirate ship, a giant rope pyramid, zip lines and a long tube slide. A flat 4 km nature trail follows a stream away from the lake.
Faunia recreates habitats from around the world, several of them indoors. In Los Polos, more than a hundred penguins from six species swim and nest in a hall kept near freezing. La Jungla is a humid Amazon rainforest where a tropical storm breaks every hour and manatees swim through a tunnel at its entrance. Outside are a farm with dwarf goats and a canyon of 18 life-size dinosaur replicas.
The city's big arcaded square is closed to traffic and walled in on all four sides, so kids can run the open paving around a bronze King Philip III on horseback. Count the nine arched gateways, then take the steep steps down through the Arco de Cuchilleros.
Street musicians and painters work the arcades, and on Sunday mornings collectors set up a stamp and coin market under the arches.
A 1916 iron-and-glass market hall beside Plaza Mayor, now home to more than 20 food stands instead of grocers. Kids can peer at fish laid out on ice, point at stacked fruit, and pick their own small bites: croquetas, meatballs, a mini pizza or a pastry.
More than 7 million people visit each year, so it suits a quick grazing stop more than a long sit-down meal.
Segovia's Roman aqueduct strides through the city center on stacked granite arches, and kids can stand right beneath them in Plaza del Azoguejo. At the far end of the old town, the Alcázar is a turreted castle on a rock above two rivers, with suits of armor inside and a 152-step spiral climb up the Torre de Juan II. The city tourism office also runs free treasure-hunt gymkhanas for families.
New to Madrid, or hosting family from home? Start here. These are the places we send every family first: big parks where kids run free, museums that hold their attention, a palace full of real armor, a hall of dinosaurs, and thick hot chocolate with churros. Here's what we checked, from rowing on the Retiro lake to a day under Segovia's Roman aqueduct.
El Retiro spreads 125 hectares of lawns, shady paths and formal gardens around a big rowing lake, watched over by the Alfonso XII monument. Kids hunt for the Fallen Angel statue, peer into the restored Monkey Pit from the old royal menagerie, and watch puppets at the Teatro de Títeres. Playgrounds of different sizes are spread through the park, and the wide paved paths suit scooters, skates and bikes.
The largest royal palace in Western Europe has more than 3,000 rooms, and the self-guided route through the state halls takes in the grand staircase, the Throne Room, the Gasparini Room, the gala dining room and the Royal Chapel. Across the Plaza de la Armería courtyard, the Royal Armory holds the personal armor of Emperor Charles V and King Philip II, with knights mounted on armored horses.
Madrid Río runs more than 10 km along the Manzanares, on land freed up when the M-30 ring road went underground. Kids get 17 play areas built from wood and hemp rope, with spider webs, hanging bridges and a big zip line, plus a hill of giant slides and a summer splash beach. Car-free paths suit bikes and scooters, and birds and fish are back in the river.
This is one of the oldest natural history museums in the world, split into a geology wing and a biology wing. The fossil hall holds Dippy, a Diplodocus cast that arrived in 1913, beside the Megatherium giant ground sloth and a replica of Lucy. The Biodiversity hall, signed in Spanish and English, has a 21-meter fin whale skeleton, an African elephant and extinct animals like the Tasmanian tiger.
Animals from five continents share the zoo, including giant pandas, koalas, Sumatran elephants and white rhinos. The glass-pyramid aquarium, Spain's first tropical marine aquarium when it opened in 1995, holds about 330 species, two 18-meter walk-through tunnels and a shark tank. Sea lions Tau, Carlota and Saba star in a short daily demo, and a small train loops past the pandas, meerkats and lemurs.
Spain's national art museum holds Velázquez's Las Meninas, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and Goya's Saturn. For kids, the Prado's own children's itinerary follows Infanta Margarita, the girl at the center of Las Meninas, and her friends through nine paintings, with free audio and short videos on the museum website. Holiday weekends add family workshops in the galleries.
A chocolate café down a narrow passageway between Puerta del Sol and the Teatro Real, frying churros since 1894. Two floors of white marble tables and a tiled counter, with porras (thicker churros) and cakes too.
Kids dunk churros into cups of thick hot chocolate, a warm stop on a cold walk through the center. A sister shop across the square sells truffles and ice cream to take away.
A real Egyptian temple, built more than 2,200 years ago for Amun and Isis, rescued from the rising Nile and given to Spain in 1968 for its help saving the Abu Simbel temples. Inside are small, dim rooms with carved reliefs and a low-ceilinged terrace level. Outside, it stands over a pool, a short walk from Plaza de España.
The tour starts in the Real Madrid museum, an interactive, audiovisual walk past the club's trophies, including all 15 European Cups. From the third-tier stands, kids look down over the renovated stadium, then walk through the First Team dressing room and sit in the dugouts beside the pitch. Photo spots put them next to a favorite player or the Champions League trophy, and the route ends in the official store.
Rides range from Abismo, one of the fastest roller coasters in the world at 105 km/h, to Tornado, an inverted coaster where legs dangle, and Star Flyer, the park's tallest ride, a chain swing with views across the city. Nickelodeon Land is the younger kids' zone, with a Paw Patrol roller coaster, Rugrats bumper cars, a Ninja Turtles driving school and SpongeBob's Splash Bash, where riders fire water.
Casa de Campo is the city's biggest park: 1,535 hectares of pine and oak woodland west of the river. Families come for the lake, where you can rent a rowing boat, and for a string of play areas with a castle, a pirate ship, a giant rope pyramid, zip lines and a long tube slide. A flat 4 km nature trail follows a stream away from the lake.
Faunia recreates habitats from around the world, several of them indoors. In Los Polos, more than a hundred penguins from six species swim and nest in a hall kept near freezing. La Jungla is a humid Amazon rainforest where a tropical storm breaks every hour and manatees swim through a tunnel at its entrance. Outside are a farm with dwarf goats and a canyon of 18 life-size dinosaur replicas.
The city's big arcaded square is closed to traffic and walled in on all four sides, so kids can run the open paving around a bronze King Philip III on horseback. Count the nine arched gateways, then take the steep steps down through the Arco de Cuchilleros.
Street musicians and painters work the arcades, and on Sunday mornings collectors set up a stamp and coin market under the arches.
A 1916 iron-and-glass market hall beside Plaza Mayor, now home to more than 20 food stands instead of grocers. Kids can peer at fish laid out on ice, point at stacked fruit, and pick their own small bites: croquetas, meatballs, a mini pizza or a pastry.
More than 7 million people visit each year, so it suits a quick grazing stop more than a long sit-down meal.
Segovia's Roman aqueduct strides through the city center on stacked granite arches, and kids can stand right beneath them in Plaza del Azoguejo. At the far end of the old town, the Alcázar is a turreted castle on a rock above two rivers, with suits of armor inside and a 152-step spiral climb up the Torre de Juan II. The city tourism office also runs free treasure-hunt gymkhanas for families.