Lodging in Madrid and Barcelona

Do you have RS Spain & Portugal Guide book yet? If yes, good. If not, you should get it as it has lots of information on places to stay and at what prices.

Good suggestion from Charlie. My suggestions are Hotel Europa (Madrid), Hotel Continental (Barcelona). Also try TripAdvisor.

I second the Hotel Europa, it is right on the Puerta Del Sol. A great website with plenty of links and info on hotels is MadridMan http://www.madridman.com. It is the site of an American who lives in Madrid, he also has sites for Barcelona and other Spanish cities.

We stayed at Hotel Santo Domingo and got it for $100 through hotels.com. Very convenient-metro nearby but we walked everywhere. Room had a small balcony and our view was of the Palacio. Hotel Europa would have been too noisy for us.

We enjoyed our stay at the II Castillas hotel in Madrid. It's located just off of the Gran Via and is an easy stroll to Plaza Puerta de Sol. El Corte Ingles store is in the next block with a pharmacy, grocery and everything else you may need. The price we paid included an excellent FULL breakfast buffet. The rooms and bathrooms are large and newly renovated. Google them and see if this meets your needs and budget. We would return to this hotel.

Madrid: You can't go wrong with Hotel Europa, but I'll also ask you to take a look at Hostal Acapulco on Plaza del Carmen. It's not a hostel but a nice small hotel with inexpensive rates and balconies overlooking the plaza (in a bigger building with two other hotels on different floors). It's highly rated on tripadvisor. To give you an idea on rates, our quad was 85€ per night...doubles are much less. It's just a couple of blocks over and up from Europa and Puerta del Sol.