Is Madrid safe?

Violence is rarely what goes wrong for visitors in Madrid. Theft is. Teams work the Gran Vía pavements between Callao and Calle de Alcalá and Metro Line 1 on the stretch from Sol to Atocha. Line 8 from Barajas airport is the other one to watch, because a jet-lagged solo traveller with two bags is the easiest mark on the train. Keep your phone in a front pocket on the Sol escalators, where the crush is warm and tight and somebody always bumps you. On Sundays El Rastro fills Calle de la Ribera de Curtidores from about 9am to 3pm, and by noon you can barely move between the stalls of leather and old vinyl. We would go before 10:30, bag worn across the chest. Around Plaza Mayor, where the air smells of frying calamari, women may press a sprig of rosemary into your hand and then ask for €5 or €10. Keep walking, as you would past the clipboard petitions outside the Museo del Prado, which tend to cover a hand reaching for your pocket.

Madrid keeps later hours than almost any capital in Europe, which works in a solo traveller's favour. Dinner starts around 21:30, and Plaza de la Paja in La Latina is still loud with clinking glasses at 1am. It was 27.2°C and clear at 19:00 on 13 October, so the terraces in Plaza de Santa Ana are likely to stay full this week. Malasaña and Chueca feel the most comfortable for women walking alone, in our experience, with lit streets and people on every block until about 2am. Three spots, though, need a clearer head. Calle de la Montera, the short street that runs north from Sol, has street prostitution and persistent touts, which is more hassle than danger. Plaza de Lavapiés and Plaza de Tirso de Molina can turn edgy after 1am, with men muttering offers of hashish and the odd phone snatched off a terrace table. Casa de Campo is a park for daylight only. Puente de Vallecas and Villaverde tend to post higher crime figures, though both sit far south of anything on a visitor's map.

The Metro runs from 6:00 to about 1:30, and the last trains on a Friday smell of spilled beer and cologne but rarely feel threatening. After it closes, the búho night buses leave Plaza de Cibeles roughly every 15 to 35 minutes until near 6:00 and are reliable. For anyone travelling alone after 2am, we'd go with a licensed taxi, white with a red diagonal stripe on the front door, or book a Cabify or Uber by app. A metered ride across the centre, say Chueca to La Latina, tends to cost €8 to €12. The airport run was a fixed €33 to anywhere inside the M-30 ring road at our last check, about $37 at the 13 October rate of 0.8938 euros to the dollar. Refuse any driver at the terminal who quotes more than the flat fare posted on the cab window. Late arrivals should know that the Exprés Aeropuerto bus runs all night to Cibeles for €5.

Eating alone is easier here than in Paris or Rome, because Madrid eats standing up. Take a stool at the zinc counter of any bar on Calle de la Cava Baja or Calle de Ponzano in Chamberí, order a cold caña for around €3, and nobody asks whether a second person is coming. Weekday lunch menus, the menú del día, run €13 to €16 for three courses and are sold per head, so no table-for-two rule applies. For company, a small-group tapas walk of 8 to 12 people booked through Viator usually charges per person with no single supplement, and we think it beats a coach tour of 40. Tablao Flamenco Las Tablas sells individual seats, and a show was listed for Tuesday 13 October. Hostels around Malasaña and Huertas rent private rooms with a lock on the door. Trip.com lets you filter for single-occupancy rates, and some older hostales along Gran Vía still keep true single rooms priced below their doubles.

If something does go wrong, dial 112, where operators can usually switch to English. For a stolen phone or wallet, walk to the SATE foreign tourist office inside the police station at Calle de Leganitos 19, two minutes from Plaza de España; it is staffed from 9:00 to midnight every day, and officers there help you file the denuncia in English, cancel cards, and reach your embassy. Insurers such as World Nomads will likely ask for that stamped report, so get it before you leave Madrid. The hazard that sends more visitors to a pharmacy than any thief is heat: July and August afternoons regularly pass 36°C, the paving of Plaza de Oriente radiates it back at you, and there is little shade between the Royal Palace and Almudena Cathedral. The tap water, piped from the Sierra de Guadarrama, is safe and tastes clean, and the public fountains in El Retiro are free.