Hello friends - going to Madrid next month and doing some day trips like Toledo and Segovia and then going to Barcelona. Any hotel recommendations/areas as to here to stay in Madrid and Barcelona? We are a small group of adults going no kids. A central walkable area close to shops & museums.
Also any good wine tours close to any of those areas? First time in Spain!
Any other suggestions or "musts" are welcome!
Thank you in advance!
Posted by
Twin Cities of MN
5581 posts
I liked Hotel Europa in Madrid. It's on Puerta del sol. Extremely clean and fresh and staff was very helpful for planning day trips.
In Barcelona we stayed at BCN Fashion House. It is a small hotel/BnB, very centrally located, a couple blocks off Pl Catalunya.
Posted by
Huntsville, AL, USA
8141 posts
All the major European cities have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of rooms. They all have their pros and cons.
I start by picking a neighborhood on Google Maps where I want to be and then click on the Hotel block at the top. Up pops a bunch of tiny Hotel icons with the price. I can click on them, and it will get me into their customer ratings, etc.
For example I picked an underground station between the Madrid Airport and downtown, and found a great place to stay. When we moved down to Barcelona, I picked a neighborhood 1-2 stops on the underground from Familia Sagrada and found a great apartment on a quiet street.
Another way to find a great room is to go to TripAdvisor and put in a neighborhood. I filter the accommodations by Lowest Price to Highest Price and look for relatively cheap hotels with abnormally high customer ratings. Then I'll read what people have to say about the properties.
You'll love Spain. They have especially beautiful people and the price of travel there is very favorable in comparison with other popular countries.
Posted by
899 posts
I second David's suggestions.
Toledo is a lovely day trip from Madrid. We stayed at Room Mate Alba which was lovely and reasonably priced (@160 euros per night). It was a 10-minute taxi ride from the train station.
In Barcelona, we stayed in a VRBO flat which was across from the Sagrada Familia (@220 euros per night). It was clean and comfortable with two bedrooms. When management found out that we would be out touring and wouldn't be in the flat for them to show us how to use the washing machine, they told us to give them all of our dirty laundry and they would wash, dry, fold it and deliver it to us for FREE which they did! Amazing! We have done two day trips from Barcelona--one to Montserrat and the other to Girona. Both were delightful.
Posted by
Laurie Mann, Pittsburgh, PA
1 posts
We're considering going to Spain in the fall and may choose the Barcelona/Madrid tour as it's covering everything we'd already planned to do.
Can I get a sense or what the hotels/B&Bs are like? We generally avoid the big American-style hotels in Europe anyway, and look for hotels/apartments that are on a quieter street but within a few blocks of restaurants and transit. Been to the UK/Ireland/Italy/Netherlands/Belgium/Australia on our own. Took our first European river cruise last year which we loved, but it's a little too expensive to do frequently.