MADRID: Planning for a 2 day/2night stay near the Prado

Barring any mobility issues, the Prado is only about a 15 minutes walk from the Plaza Mayor/Puerta Del Sol area from the hotels you mentioned. If you do stay down by the museums then visit Retiro Park and walk past Alcalá gate, Plaza de Cibeles, and Fuente de Neptuno. Also in that area is the quirky Rana de la Fortuna (Lucky Frog) statue and if you like Fernando Botero’s work, his Lady With Mirror sculpture is at the intersection where the Christopher Columbus monument is, a block from the frog statue. Also near there is Mercado de la Paz. It’s a traditional market selling, fruit, meats, produce, etc., and it has some food stalls where you can sit and eat.

With less than two full days, and assuming you spend a half day in the Prado, your time to see other sights will be limited. If the hotel you select has a breakfast buffet, to save time, it maybe easier to pay for it. Also because of your limited time, I’d skip the Flamenco show and spend the time walking around and enjoying the city.

It’s hard to distill a ‘don’t miss’ list knowing you have so little time in town and not knowing much of your interests. The Reina Sophia is worth visiting just for Guernica (the rest of the collection mightn’t be worth your time). The Thyssen-Bornemisza has some great work, but it’s so poorly curated/displayed it nearly makes me angry. Also, it’s not very Spanish—at all. The Academy of Fine Arts a less-visited home of some great work.

I’d prefer staying a bit west of the Prado, where the immediate area is pretty sleepy (by Madrid standards.) Las Letras, around Plaza de Santa Ana, is nice—more lively without being loud and crowded, and more generally central.

There are definitely breakfast places around, but Spaniards don’t tend to eat hearty breakfasts, so anything more than coffee and toast at the neighborhood bar/cafe is kind of a novelty.

I would go to no restaurant. Madrid has many of the best bars in the world.

Thank you to all who wrote!

Just to clarify, we are flying into and out of Madrid for our trip that will mainly focus on France, but include a few days exploring the Basque area from Bilbao to Bayonne, and then from Colluire to Barcelona. So we'll only be in Madrid for a day or two. And we do have some mobility issues: we are in our 70s, and one of us can only walk 1/2 mi or less, using a walking stick. We can and will take cabs as needed.

Many thanks!
Lisa