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3 days in Madrid

A complete 3-day Madrid itinerary with 16 places, arranged so each stop is open when you arrive and the walking between them stays sensible.

Days
3
Places
16
Time in transit
265 min
Open this plan and change the dates

Why the stops are in this order

Most itineraries you find online are a list of places worth seeing, left in whatever order the writer thought of them. That is the part that falls apart on the day: you arrive somewhere at 17:40 and it closed at 17:00, or you cross the city twice because two neighbouring sights sat on different days.

This plan is sequenced instead of listed. Every stop below is checked against the opening hours of the place itself, and the gaps between them are real door-to-door travel times, not straight-line distance on a map. The visiting windows shown are what is actually achievable in a day.

Across all 3 days this route spends 265 minutes in transit — that number is the point. Reordering the same 16 places carelessly can easily double it, and that time comes straight out of your trip.

Day 1

09:00–21:30 · 5 places · 88 min travelling

  1. Central station

    09:00–09:00

  2. 21 min by public transport

    El Retiro Park

    09:21–11:21 2 hr

  3. 16 min walk

    Restaurante El Ñeru

    12:16–12:46 30 min

  4. 8 min walk

    Royal Palace of Madrid

    12:54–14:39 1 hr 45 min

  5. 32 min by public transport

    Museo Nacional del Prado

    15:11–17:26 2 hr 15 min

  6. 11 min by public transport

    Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

    17:37–19:07 1 hr 30 min

Day 2

09:00–21:30 · 6 places · 61 min travelling

  1. Central station

    09:00–09:00

  2. 17 min by public transport

    Puerta de Alcalá

    09:17–09:47 30 min

  3. 13 min by public transport

    Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum

    10:00–12:00 2 hr

  4. 8 min walk

    Vinitus Gran Via Restaurant

    12:08–12:38 30 min

  5. 8 min walk

    El Oso y el Madroño

    12:46–13:01 15 min

  6. 12 min walk

    Cibeles Fountain

    13:13–13:43 30 min

  7. 3 min walk

    Casa de América

    13:46–14:46 1 hr

Day 3

09:00–20:00 · 5 places · 116 min travelling

  1. Central station

    09:00–09:00

  2. 25 min by public transport

    Campo del Moro

    09:25–10:40 1 hr 15 min

  3. 20 min by public transport

    Fountain of Fame

    11:00–11:30 30 min

  4. 10 min walk

    Oven Mozzarella Gran Vía | Restaurante Italiano Madrid

    12:10–12:40 30 min

  5. 29 min walk

    Parque de Atracciones de Madrid

    13:09–17:09 4 hr

  6. 32 min by public transport

    Plaza del Dos de Mayo

    17:41–18:11 30 min

Make it your trip

The schedule above is built for a generic 3-day visit. Open it in the planner to set your own dates — the timings recalculate against the opening hours for those specific days, which matters more than it sounds when a museum closes on Mondays. You can drag stops between days, swap anything you are not interested in, and the rest of the day re-sequences around the change.

Open the Madrid plan