Madrid in two days

💡Rooftops are the best view and almost none of them charge

The Círculo de Bellas Artes has an entry fee, but several hotels and department stores in the centre have open terraces where you only pay for what you drink. Madrid is a low city with an enormous sky: the difference between seeing it from the street and from a fourth floor is bigger than you'd expect.

💡The metro gets you everywhere and closes at 1:30

Madrid is big but the metro is one of the best in Europe: ten minutes between any two places. Watch the closing time, which catches a lot of people out; after that it is night buses or a taxi.

💡The Prado is free for the last two hours

Monday to Saturday from six, Sundays from five. It is real, but the queue starts an hour earlier and inside you are rushing because they are closing. If the trip is short, pay and go first thing: you see the same with half the people.

💡The Retiro on a Sunday morning is the plan

That's when the city takes it over: drum circles, puppet shows, people rowing, terraces full from early on. Any other day it's a pretty park; on Sunday it's where you see how Madrid actually lives. And the Crystal Palace is inside and costs nothing.

💡Dinner here is at ten, not at eight

Sit down to eat at eight and you'll be alone, and in many places the kitchen won't even be open. Lunch runs from two to four and dinner from half nine onwards. It isn't a quaint custom: eight in the evening in Madrid is still mid-afternoon.

💡El Rastro is Sundays only, and only in the morning

It starts around nine and is packed up by three. If you spend your only Sunday in a museum, you miss it. And the interesting part isn't what's for sale but the streets around it, La Latina and Lavapiés, which are at their best at exactly that hour.

💡The airport metro carries a separate supplement

Line 8 runs from the airport to the centre in half an hour, but it charges a surcharge on top of the normal fare, and the machines don't always make that obvious. Buy the multi-trip card on arrival: it can be shared between several people and pays for itself from day two.

💡Toledo and Segovia are half an hour away by train

Both on the high-speed line from Atocha or Chamartín, barely half an hour, and both are worth a full day. That's what turns a two-day trip into a four-day one without changing hotel. Book the train ahead: there aren't many departures and they fill up.

💡Eat two streets off the square

Everything facing Plaza Mayor and Sol is priced for visitors. Drop down to Cava Baja, La Latina or Antón Martín and you eat far better for half. The weekday set lunch is still the best invention in this country.