What's the must-see thing in Madrid?

The Museo del Prado sits on the east side of Paseo del Prado, about a 12-minute walk south from Puerta del Sol. It opened in 1819 with 311 paintings. The collection has since grown to over 8,000, but you're here for one room. Room 12, on the first floor, holds Velázquez's Las Meninas (1656), a 3-metre-tall canvas that seems to watch you back. Morning light through the skylights of Room 12 gives the oils a warmth that flattens under artificial lighting by midday. General admission costs €15 (about $17.35 at current rates). The museum currently goes free Monday through Saturday from 6pm to 8pm, and Sundays and holidays from 5pm to 7pm. That sounds like a deal, but the free-entry crowd packs the Velázquez rooms 4 or 5 deep. Book a timed 9:30am ticket online instead. You'll have maybe 15 minutes of near-silence with Goya's Black Paintings downstairs before the school groups arrive.

The Museo Reina Sofía sits 10 minutes south of the Prado, at the bottom of Paseo del Prado near Atocha station. The museum opened in 1992 inside a converted 18th-century hospital with two glass elevator towers bolted to the stone facade. Inside, the air drops noticeably, kept around 20°C for conservation. Picasso's Guernica (1937) fills the back wall of a second-floor gallery, 3.49 metres tall by 7.77 metres wide, rendered in nothing but grey, black, and white. In person, at nearly 8 metres across, it hits differently than any reproduction suggests. To be fair, the permanent collection also covers strong Dalí and Miró rooms on the surrounding floors. But Guernica alone is worth the €12 ticket. Free entry currently runs Monday and Wednesday through Saturday from 7pm to 9pm, and Sundays from 12:30pm to 2:30pm. The Reina Sofía is closed Tuesdays.

The Palacio Real stands at the western edge of central Madrid, overlooking the Manzanares valley. Construction started in 1735 after fire destroyed the old Alcázar. The building has 3,418 rooms, the largest royal palace in Western Europe by floor area. The Spanish royal family moved to the Palacio de la Zarzuela, 15 km northwest, after Alfonso XIII left in 1931, and the state rooms have been open to visitors ever since. The Throne Room ceiling, painted by Tiepolo in 1764, is worth the neck strain. The marble floors of the Salón de Columnas echo underfoot. The air inside stays noticeably cooler than the street, a relief in June when Madrid afternoons regularly reach 35°C. Admission currently runs around €12. Arrive before 10am. By noon the Plaza de la Armería fills with tour buses and the ticket line stretches past the Almudena Cathedral.

All three sit within a 25-minute walk of each other along an east-west line. The Prado and Reina Sofía are 10 minutes apart on Paseo del Prado, connected by the Atocha metro stop on Line 1. The Palacio Real is 20 minutes west on foot, or one metro stop from Sol to Ópera on Line 2. A first-timer's best sequence is Prado at 9:30am, walk south to Reina Sofía before lunch, then eat in La Latina. The tapas bars along Cava Baja tend to open around 1:30pm. Finish at the Palacio Real by mid-afternoon. Mind you, Madrid eats late. Most restaurants don't serve lunch before 1:30pm and dinner starts around 9pm. If you arrive hungry from the Prado at noon, the museum's ground-floor café serves sandwiches and coffee for €6-8 and doesn't follow the late-lunch convention.