Great art by day, long nights on the terraces
Madrid's great treasures sit along a single boulevard: the Prado, with Velázquez and Goya; the Reina Sofía, home to Picasso's Guernica; and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, which fills the gaps in between. The Retiro park offers shade and a boating lake, and the Royal Palace and Plaza Mayor recall the Habsburg and Bourbon capital. But the city's real character is social: vermouth at noon, tapas crawls through La Latina on a Sunday, and dinners that start at ten. Toledo and Segovia are easy day trips.