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Last active November 12, 2025 16:30
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spain.md

Spain

Taxi Apps

  • Cabify - considered the top taxi app here with competitive pricing, but I've not tried it yet as the public transport from the airport was 1st world good
  • Uber
  • Bolt

Madrid

Spain's capital is not cheap but it is surprisingly nice, clean and gentrified compared to many other capitals (even more so compared to other countries as I'd recently been to such as Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon!)

There are lots of nice historic architectural buildings and monuments to see and lots of tourists taking pictures in front of them, as well as lots of museums, acai and coffee shops.

First impressions on the metro was that it was clean and efficient, and the population actually looked Spanish, so it appears they have much less mass immigration foreign replacement than back home in London.

The central areas have more tourists as one would expect.

Madrid was cold in the evenings in November, around 12C degrees. It was ok during the day, around 15-16C degrees, but you will need a coat by 5:30pm as the sun is going down.

Travel from Madrid Airport

You can take the 200 bus from immediately outside the door of exit 14 at Terminal 1 arrivals. It goes to the metro station Avenue de America - which only takes 18 minutes and a handful of stops for an affordable €1.50. It seems to come quite frequently approximately every 20 minutes.

There also appears to be a metro number 8 line from Terminal 4.

Of course both will be much cheaper than taking a taxi.

Metro in Madrid

The metro is also affordable, clean and frequent.

I paid €1.50 to go the rest of the way to the centre (Alonso Martinez).

Contactless card payments don't work on the barriers though, you need a local travel card, but this is not a problem as the automated vending machines have an English option and will dispense a card with your single fare on it for an extra one-time fee of €2.50.

Attractions in Madrid

Restaurants in Madrid

  • Honest Greens - spanish gentrified chain restaurant with an excellent menu, affordable prices and nice lighting and decor. Mainly in Spain and Portugal but expanding internationally, starting to open in London and Paris as of late 2025/2026. Think of it as the Spanish answer to Wagamama. The piri piri chicken is a best seller here and is very tasty, as they make good use of sauce and chilli. The hot honey halloumi in spicy honey side is good too, although they market it under extra protein, even though it is more fat than protein. The grilled avocado nikkei side sounds great due to the lots of ingredients but when it comes it's just half an avocado grilled and topped with a small amount of tomato salsa type ingredients - I'd skip the avocado side unless you're on a diet and go with another side next time. Wifi 95/87 Mbit/s at Madrid Hortaleza, 75/72 Mbit/s at Madrid Velázquez
  • El Social - the strip steak & fries for €20 was decent, it's not fillet mignon, but at this price point it's good, and comes with chimichurri sauce and padron peppers to add a bit of spice. The also serve a nice tapenade, bread and crackers, which seems like a nice touch, until you realize they actually charge for this without asking. They have their own branded table water in glass bottle too, but that's not charged. The mango pudding with caramelized ginger pieces is good, topped with cream. I would prefer if the depth of the mango was more and depth of the cream less, but it's still worth having for €6. Overall this is a good restaurant, but not cheap. Honest Greens beats it on price and portions. Wifi 573/402 Mbit/s
  • SteakBurger - Spanish steak & burger chain with 10 branches across Madrid and Murcia as of late 2025 - has burgers in both regular and angus matured variety (more expensive). Good menu selection of steaks and burgers, but more expensive than Honest Greens or El Social for steak. La Spanish burger with a fried egg in it was good, but of course they gave me the matured version even though I asked for the normal version, which is around €4 euros more so watch out for this if you're on a budget. Size wise the 150g burger was enough, glad I didn't try the upgrade to the 220g burger. Limited healthy soft drinks selection, no fresh juices. Wifi 129/270 Mbit/s (tested at the Gran Via branch)
  • Amazonia - Acai chain - the tropical bowl was very good with pineapple, blueberry, kiwi, banana and granola and garnished with coconut flakes. The 350ml sized bowl was more than enough for me, and warning the acai comes very chilled. Wifi 52/60 Mbit/s at Chamberí. Other branches at Central Madrid / Chueca
  • Almalibre Açaí House Madrid - acai bowls of vairous sizes with choice of 3 toppings. The 250ml for €9.50 is big enough - 400ml would be too much for one person. Wifi 402/249 Mbit/s
  • TKO Tacos - affordable tacos chain with a great mix of ingredients, including the usual beef, pork and chicken, but also octopus and cactus. The tacos are surprisingly cheap at €1-2 each, but they are also very small, so you need 5 of them per person. The "cochinada" taco of smoked pork was one of my favourites in terms of distinctive flavour. The grilled octopus taco is twice the price at €4.20, and comes with a lot of white sauce. While decent, I would in hindsight get two other tacos instead. The "chicken tinga" taco with spicy grilled chicken was decent. The cactus "nopales" taco is interesting for a vegetarian option. No wifi here unfortunately (probably on purpose so people eat and leave the venue as it's fairly small and popular)

TODO:

Food:

Acai and desserts:

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