What's a good 3-day itinerary for Madrid?

Day 1 stays west of Puerta del Sol in the Habsburg quarter. Start at the Royal Palace at 9am, when the morning air still carries a cool edge and the courtyard is mostly empty. Completed in 1764, the palace has 3,418 rooms. Skip the audio guide and allow 90 minutes. Walk south to Almudena Cathedral, started in 1883 and not finished until 1993. Head east along Calle Mayor to Plaza Mayor. By 12:30pm the terrace cafes fill up and the smell of grilled squid drifts across the arcade. Continue to Puerta del Sol, Madrid's kilometre-zero marker, then south to Mercado de San Miguel for croquetas and a 3-euro glass of Verdejo. To be fair, the market runs tourist-priced at 4 to 6 euros per tapa. For better value, walk 5 minutes to Casa Revuelta on Calle de Latoneros for cod fritters at 2.80 euros. By late afternoon, head to Templo de Debod in Parque del Oeste, an Egyptian temple moved stone by stone from Nubia in 1968. The western light here is the best in central Madrid. Dinner at Sobrino de Botín on Calle Cuchilleros, open since 1725, where the cochinillo asado runs about 26 euros.

Day 2 moves southeast along the Paseo del Prado. The Museo del Prado, open since 1819, admits visitors from 10am. Be in the queue by 9:40 with a pre-booked 15-euro timed ticket. Head straight to Room 12 for Velázquez's Las Meninas, then Rooms 56 through 57A for Goya's Black Paintings. Two hours is enough before the galleries start to blur. Walk 10 minutes north to the Thyssen-Bornemisza, opened in 1992, which fills the gap the Prado leaves with its ground-floor American collection and Impressionist galleries on Floor 2. For lunch, cross to El Brillante under the Atocha roundabout for a bocadillo de calamares at 4.50 euros. The bread is warm, the squid rings snap when you bite through the batter, and the whole thing takes 8 minutes. Spend the early afternoon in Retiro Park. Enter from the Puerta de Alcalá side, rent a rowboat on the lake for 6 euros per 45 minutes, and find the shade near the Crystal Palace where the grass is surprisingly soft for a city park. By 5pm walk south to the Reina Sofía. Weekday entry is free after 7pm. Guernica hangs in Room 206.

Day 3 shifts to the neighborhoods north and south of Gran Vía. Madrid's rhythm runs about 2 hours behind northern Europe, and by day 3 your body might have caught up. Breakfast at 10:30am at Federal Café in Malasaña, on Plaza de las Comendadoras, where eggs Benedict cost 9.50 euros and the terrace tables sit under plane trees. Malasaña feels like the city's younger, scruffier sibling. The streets are narrow, the vintage shops open around 11, and the walls still carry decades of paint from la movida madrileña onward. Walk south through Gran Vía to Chueca by noon. From Chueca, take the Metro (Line 5, 3 stops) to La Latina for a 2pm lunch at Casa Lucio on Calle Cava Baja. Order the huevos rotos, their signature dish since 1974. Broken eggs over hand-cut fries with jamón ibérico underneath, 14.50 euros. The yolk runs into the ham fat and the fries soak it up. Spend the afternoon walking Cava Baja's 33 bars and tabernas, then end at the Viaducto de Segovia overlook around 9pm. Mid-June light lingers in Madrid until nearly 10pm.

Madrid eats late. Lunch runs 2pm to 3:30pm, dinner 9:30pm to 11pm. Show up at a restaurant at 7pm and you will eat alone in a room set for 60. Mid-June mornings currently sit around 19°C but the afternoons tend to reach 33 to 35°C, so the siesta gap between 2pm and 5pm is real. Use it for the Prado or the Reina Sofía. One thing first-timers get wrong is trying to fit both the Royal Palace and the Prado into day 1. They sit 2.5 kilometres apart on opposite sides of the city's central axis, and the Prado alone needs 2 hours minimum. Splitting them across days gives you 90 minutes in each instead of rushing through both. The Metro's 10-trip Metrobús card costs 12.20 euros and covers buses too. You likely won't need more than one card across 3 days on this route, since each day clusters within walking distance.