Guided tours

These are the guided tours I've taken in those cities:

Madrid:

- Walking tour of historic center, offered by the tourist office as of 2016. Good. Recommended for all visitors. Capacity-controlled, so it may be risky just to show up ten minutes early, wanting to take the tour.
- Mandatory tour at the Convent of the Descalzas Reales; I had to take a Spanish tour, so I have no idea whether it was any good or not. There are now more English tours, but this sight is not one that all tourists feel they need to see. If you want to take this tour, it's one to book ahead of time; I have no idea how early you'd need to do that.

I used the audio guide for the Palacio Real and thought it was sufficient. I don't remember whether I used the audio guide at any of the art museums; I may just have depended on any material posted in English.

Barcelona:
- Tour of Barri Gotic, offered by the tourist office as of 2016. Very good. Smaller group than for the "free" (but you really must tip generously) tours run by commercial enterprises. Covered interesting sights, went inside the Cathedral (not referring to La Sagrada Familia here) and gave a bit of Civil War history as well. This is my top suggestion for most visitors.
- Modernism tour offered by the tourist office as of 2016. Good for those really into architecture who don't want to go to the trouble of figuring out where interesting buildings are located near Las Ramblas. You only go inside the small modernism museum for a few minutes. I think this wouldn't be a top priority for the typical visitor, because you'd still want to go inside one or more of the modernista buildings.
- Picasso tour offered by the tourist office as of 2016. Fine, but not essential. It included the the Picasso Museum entry fee. The place was an utter mob scene; I don't think we had any guiding inside the museum; that would have been very difficult to pull off.
- Mandatory (at least in 2016) tour of the gorgeous Palau de la Musica Catalana. A short organ concert in the beautiful concert hall was included.
- Civil War Tour. A long tour (pushing 4 hours, I think), mine conducted by a masters candidate in Spanish history. Very interesting information about the Civil War period imparted as we walked around the city, but they'd be the first to tell you that not a lot of Civil War events took place in Barcelona, so you're not going to see a bunch of places where important things took place. This is for folks really interested in that historical period. It was very reasonably priced for what it was (I think 25 euros in 2016).

I used audio guides at La Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila/La Pedrera, Casa Batllo, Reciente Modernista Sant Pau, the Miro Museum and probably also Parc Guell and MNAC. The fact is that many of the indoor sights in Barcelona are so crowded that sticking with a tour could be quite the challenge. It's critical to buy your tickets ahead of time for the following Barcelona sights to avoid painfully long ticket lines: La Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Casa Mila/La Pedrera, Casa Batllo and Picasso Museum. The English tours at the Palau de la Musica Catalana can sell out, so that should be planned a bit ahead of time as well.

The tours offered by the Barcelona tourist office are capacity-controlled and may only run once a day, so if you really want to take one, you should check the T.O. website and make arrangements a bit ahead of time. I don't think they sell out super-early; it seems visitors all over Europe prefer to take "free" tours conducted (in many cases) by unlicensed guides rather than paying a moderate amount for more reliable information.

Thanks for all of the great information! I appreciate the time you took to write that all out. It will be very helpful!

Acraven, do you have any more details about the Madrid tourist office walking tour you took in 2016? It wasn't clear if this tour should (or could) be booked in advance, or if one booked it in person. Thanks!

I don't remember whether I registered for the tour online or went to the tourist information office earlier that morning and signed up there--probably the latter, but with more people traveling now than in 2016, that might not be early enough.

I'm not immediately finding information online about a TO-organized walking tour, but I bet they still have one. This webpage lists locations of the tourist offices in Madrid: https://www.esmadrid.com/en/tourist-information-centres. If you're in town for several days and are staying near one of the offices, you can pop in there and get information. If not, or if you want to arrange a walking tour early in your stay (which would be best), I suggest emailing the tourist office to ask whether it still offers tours. The email address is turismo@esmadrid.com.

It's not uncommon for information about TO-operated tours to be less than prominent on a city's tourism website. I often discover them when I walk into the tourist office--often my first stop in a new city after I've dropped off my luggage at my hotel. It's common for me to learn about a local attraction by browsing the brochures in the tourist office, and I like to have a paper map, too.

Rick's app, Rick Steves' Audio Europe, has a city walking tour for Madrid and two tours for Barcelona. He does a really good job with those, so they are a viable alternative (and free!) if you don't find a guided your you like.

There are probably also "free" tour options in both cities. I really dislike that business model, but if there are no reasonably-priced walking tours available, I will take a "free" tour. Just be aware that the guides are charged a head tax by their company for each person who shows up for the tour. They start out in the hole to the tune of probably about 5 euros per person. Tip generously!

Seriously consider hiring Frederico Garcia, spainfred@gmail.com, as recommended by RS (and featured in many RS podcasts and shows).

I would have Frederico give your family a 3 hour walking tour on your first full day in the city. We did this at the start of a two week stay in Madrid last month and I can’t begin to tell you how informative and helpful (and entertaining!) Frederico was as our guide. And a lovely human being as well!

darleledrushing's posting (above) should read "Federico Barroso".
Garcia is Federco's mother's name.
I also highly recommend Federico and his team at Spainfred.com.
He is the finest tour guide I know.