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, 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 route through the state halls takes in the grand staircase, the Throne Room, the Gasparini Room, the gala dining room and the Royal Chapel. English guided tours of the state halls run several times a day. Across the courtyard, the Royal Armory holds the armor of Emperor Charles V and King Philip II, with mounted knights.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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 route through the state halls takes in the grand staircase, the Throne Room, the Gasparini Room, the gala dining room and the Royal Chapel. English guided tours of the state halls run several times a day. Across the courtyard, the Royal Armory holds the armor of Emperor Charles V and King Philip II, with mounted knights.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
