15 Unique, Quirky and Cool Things to do in Madrid

Arranging a journey to Madrid and not guaranteed exactly where to commence?

We put in days scouring the internet for distinctive factors to do in Madrid properly just before we landed in Spain’s largest metropolis and money. Madrid has stood for about 1,100 decades, so you know there have to be a great deal of things worth examining out.

Turns out there are hundreds of quirky and unusual items to do in Madrid! Once you’ve noticed the touristy hotspots, like checking out the sprawling Parque del Retiro or the amazing Royal Palace of Spain, you may be crave some additional concealed items to do in Madrid.

The initially time we frequented Madrid, we realized there were being several should see and do functions in this nonetheless escalating city, on the other hand even back then we did not notice how numerous enjoyment items there were being to do in this vivid metropolis.

Unique things to do in Madrid Papa Smurf costume in Plaza del Sol Madrid
Odd and quirky Madrid

Regardless of whether you are just halting in Madrid as a beginning place for a extended highway vacation in Spain and Portugal or taking a Madrid to Barcelona teach trip, know that Madrid has a great deal of points to see and do.

Distinctive Things to do in Madrid

Be a part of us for 15 distinctive things to do in Madrid.

Eat Curros con Chocolat at San Ginés

Whilst curros con chocolat (churros with a mug of thick chocolate) absolutely is not one of a kind in Spain, we have nonetheless to see a further Spanish city that does this blend so very well.

First opening in 1894, San Ginés has been serving churros and chocolate 24 hrs a working day to the masses.

A most loved late night time quit (particularly common with soon after the bar patrons), the chocolate is so thick that even although it is served in a mug, excellent luck ingesting it. Built generally for dipping the delicious fried churros (yummy deep-fried batter sticks included in cinnamon and sugar), it is not something to be missed, and was a highlight on our first journey to Madrid.

Maestro Churrero in Madrid
mmm… churros con chocolate in Madrid

Check out a piece of Egypt at The Templo de Debod

What can be much more exceptional than owning a serious, 2200 year aged Egyptian temple in your town?

The Templo de Debod was an Egyptian present as many thanks for supporting Egypt offer with preserving artifacts and monuments when they built the Aswan Dam. Rather than possessing the temple ruined, it was torn down brick by brick and then rebuilt to exacting depth in Madrid.

The Templo de Debod was at first designed to honor equally the god Amun and the goddess Isis, and sits in the centre of Madrid, Spain, in Parque de la Montaña, shut to the Royal Palace. You can wander the grounds whenever for absolutely free, nonetheless there is a cost to enter the principal creating.

Temple of Debod Madrid Unique things to do in Madrid

Get surreal at The Reina Sofia Museum

What will make the Reina Sofia Museum unique has extra to do with what’s in it alternatively than what it is.

Stuffed with exceptional paintings and sculptures, such as surrealist paintings by artists like Picasso and Dali, you can commit hrs walking from a single chamber to an additional surrounded by exclusive operates of art.

The Reina Sofia Museum is also very well recognised for how they team their collections.

From their avant-garde assortment, to eclecticism, all to way to their apparatus selection, each home retains a narrative that blends paintings, sculptures, posters, films and tunes collectively in a way that leaves you thinking prolonged right after you have remaining the museum.

If you are heading, make certain to check out out Pablo Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, regarded as a person of the most powerful anti-war paintings in background, and one you do not want to overlook though you’re there.

Cole Reina Sofia Madrid
A kid’s choose on artwork at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid

Take pleasure in the space at Sala Equis

Housed in the last X-rated cinema in Madrid, the famed Alba Cinema, Sala Equis is transformed into a well-liked cocktail bar and cultural heart. Divided into a few zones and housed in a former mansion, it has space for you to explore and a good deal to do.

The major place, the Sala Plaza, with its massive monitor and bar, provides a range of diverse meals. You can relax on picket benches, lounge chairs and even swings as you chat with close friends and locals alike.

At last, the cozy 55-seat cinema features anything from horror and sci-fi classics, to modern day blockbusters. They have a substantial rotating routine posted every month (no movies on Mondays while). Check out out their internet site to see what’s enjoying.

Madrid centro Daddy Carrying little girl
Daddy carrying youngster through Madrid

Consume filthy at La Pollería and La Coñería

Unique and delicious ice product treats? Count me in.

Wait, what am I looking at?” is a generally listened to sentence as people today arrive at possibly La Polleria ice product shop or its close by sister ice product store, La Coñería.

La Polleria is a racy ice cream store in Madrid that was so prosperous its to start with year that it had to move to a larger site and then spawned a “sister” model just down the street just has to be fantastic.

With both male (polofres – a play on slang male genitalia and waffles) and female (coñofre – a perform on slang feminine genitalia and waffles), they’re each a large strike and there are lineups at the two locations just about every day. With the polofres on a adhere and the conofres split with an ice product in the center, you will not only get a chuckle but a tasty ice cream address as properly.

Check out your senses at Ikono

At any time feel like you just cannot contact this or enjoy with that?

When museums are great areas to expand the intellect, most just let you use your eyes to consider it all in. Five various senses means 5 unique areas at Ikono that press your senses into the following realm.

From rooms loaded with balls to rooms stuffed with scents, Ikono usually takes about an hour to wander as a result of and is chock full of photographic times, so provide your mobile phone or a camera.

piggyback on the streets of Madrid
Baby catching a journey as a result of the streets of Madrid

Wander via the Prado Museum

The Prado Museum in Madrid is not only the greatest museum in Madrid, it is also viewed as one particular of the premiere museums of the planet.

The Prado Museum is housed in a gigantic neo-classical building developed in 1785 and is something to see on its very own.

Regardless of whether you’re an inspiring artwork university student or just delight in paintings you can see some of the most effective collections of Goya, Bosch, El Greco and Velazquez in this article, as well as Spanish Romanesque murals and Gothic altarpieces. You can even locate performs from the Italian Renaissance with masterpieces by Titia, Botticelli, Rafa and Caravaggio.

Prado Museum in Madrid

Choose in Madrid’s Street Artwork

Madrid isn’t unique in its street artwork. What sets Madrid’s avenue art apart from the rest is the quality and sheer sizing of several of these huge art pieces. From a wall of 150 painted CCTV cameras symbolizing Huge Brother is seeing, to the charming (and purposeful) Sombrerete sundial, there are murals and avenue art found all across Madrid.

For a swift roundup of some the most perfectly recognised avenue art in Madrid, verify out this write-up.

Madrid Street Art

Go to a Flamenco Exhibit

Whilst southern Spain lays declare to the Flamenco origin, Madrid is typically considered the money town of Flamenco. The biggest and most theatrical flamenco displays in the place simply call the town property, and there are quite a few flamenco reveals taking place all-around the city on any offered evening.

With the hypnotic dance, haunting vocals, Spanish guitar and rhythmic beat of the castanets, flamenco dancing is fascinating to look at and a special knowledge to delight in.

No matter whether you capture it in a tablao (a flamenco bar) like the ever well-known Corral de la Morería (opened in 1956) or Villa Rosa (to start with opened in 1911) or even happen to be in the city throughout one particular of the numerous Flamenco festivals such as Flamenco True, Flamenco Madrid or the close of the 12 months Suma Flamenca, you’re in for a serious deal with if you have by no means seasoned flamenco firsthand.

https://www.youtube.com/view?v=ZrAGWXSpKiE

Get spooked at the Chamberí Ghost Station

To start with opened in 1919, the Estación de Chamberí was one particular of Madrid’s first metro stations. Located involving the Bilbao and Iglesia stops on the Blue Line, this previous subway station was closed for decades, but could still be seen by travellers as they zipped by on the tracks.

With a very long history, such as giving shelter from the fatal bombing strategies and artillery assaults of the Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, the station was eventually reopened as a museum named Andén (Platform Zero in English).

It functions a thoroughly restored Chamberí station, full with turnstiles, previous ticket places of work, maps and a movie about how the Metro was at first constructed.

The emphasize of the Anden museum is unquestionably the fantastically reconstructed unique ads all together the metro system. Most are composed of vivid colored tiles, just as they had been back again when it initial opened in 1919.

Admission is free of charge, even so there is usually a line to get in.

Charles snapping Photo Plaza Major
Plaza Mayor Madrid

Take in at the oldest cafe in the world, the Sobrino de Botin

Marked in the Guinness E book of Records as the oldest regularly operated cafe in the planet, the Sobrino de Botin (Nephew of Botin – so named by the nephew of the authentic owner) has served food items for perfectly in excess of two generations.

It’s so previous that when it was 1st opened, patrons in fact introduced their personal foods for the owners to cook dinner up and serve.

While the most notable thing about this restaurant is certainly its age, it has saved to its Spanish roots. Entire suckling pig, faithfully organized in an old brick oven, is still the places to eat most well-known dish and the motive locals even now flock to it today.

Go macabre at the Reverte Coma Forensic Museum

If you love the macabre as effectively as grisly oddities, you will come across the Reverte Coma Forensic Museum intriguing. Housing more than 1,500 macabre oddities, ranging from severed heads from executions, dissected fetuses, deformed skulls of diverse peoples, diseased bones, mummies, 800 skeletons furthermore a couple torture equipment and a serious employed garrote.

It is definitely not for the faint of heart, nevertheless if you are fascinated in the forensic and paleopathology sciences, or have a true fascination with the topic make any difference, it is worthy of a search.

Most of these things are housed in the corridors of the huge School of Drugs making at the Complutense College in Madrid for you to see. Mostly set up for pupils, you can organize a stop by by phoning in advance or calling the college directly.

The best Transportation in Spain
Gran Vis Spain in Madrid

Get shed in the Museum of Illusions

When is a thing not as it seems?

When it is in Madrid’s Museum of Illusions. This newer museum performs on optical illusions to enable fool your head. Making use of methods like pressured perception and optical illusion, you will discover upside down rooms, never ending corridors, 3D stereograms and much much more.

Most rooms are set up a to trick your brain into looking at, or in some instances, not seeing what is correct in entrance of you. In possibly case, convey your digicam, mainly because some rooms at the Museum of Illusions need to be photographed to see their accurate likely.

Go to a true Crystal Palace

The Palacio De Cristal in Madrid’s huge Parque de Retiro is certainly some thing strange. While palaces are commonplace in Europe, what helps make the Palacio De Cristal special is that it’s nestled in the coronary heart of the park, and is a lot more significant empty space somewhat a genuine palace.

Finished in 1887, the ornate glass and metal greenhouse sits on the shore of the lake in Retiro Park and was developed strictly as a place to show arts and greenery in a loving baroque fashion. More than 130 several years later on, the creating is nonetheless stunning and supposedly appears to be like awesome in the drop as the foliage begins turning.

Moon over Plaza del Sol Madrid
Moon over Plaza del Sol

Meet your eventual overlords at The Robot Museum

Appreciate robots? Who doesn’t?

Terrified they’ll a person day enslave us? Me far too, but that does not indicate that I really don’t discover them fascinating. Madrid has just one of the premier collections of robots close to the entire world, and you can see and interact with some at the Robot Museum.

Started in 2013, the museum pays homage to equally the early days of robotic creation, what is taking place out there these days, and what may well exist tomorrow. From humanoid replicas, to robotic toys and robotic animals, to replicas of the famous Star Wars androids, and the worlds smallest robot, EMROS, the Robotic Museum in Madrid showcases them all.

Exclusive Matters to do in Madrid Spain

No matter if you are heading to Madrid for a trip, flying into Madrid as a cease to someplace else, or occur to stay in the town, there’s loads to see and do at all several hours of the day and night time.

Crammed with restaurants, leisure complexes, art studios, entire world class museums, much more parks and squares than most comparably sized metropolitan areas could dream of as effectively as enough markets and outlets to make your wallet cry, Madrid is a definite world class city filled with artwork, audio and character. So whether or not you’re in Madrid with your young children, as a pair or heading it solo, enjoy your excursion!

Do you have just about anything to insert to our listing! Permit us know in the comments!

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