What should I avoid in Madrid?

The terraces under the arcades of Plaza Mayor sell paella from laminated photo menus, and much of it comes out of a freezer. Paella is a Valencian dish from 350 km east, and the Madrid places that cook it well rarely advertise it on a sandwich board. A pitcher of sangria on those terraces tends to run €20 to €25, while inside the bars, madrileños drink tinto de verano, red wine with lemon soda, for about €3. Walk two minutes down Calle Botoneras instead. The bars there sell a bocadillo de calamares, fried squid in a crusty roll, for roughly €4 to €5, and the smell of hot olive oil drifts out onto the cobbles. Mercado de San Miguel has the same markup under glass: its oysters and croquetas cost about double what they do at Mercado de Antón Martín in Lavapiés, and at 14:00 you'll eat standing, elbow to elbow with tour groups.

Madrid eats late, and first-timers get it wrong on day one. Lunch runs from 14:00 to 16:00, and dinner rarely starts before 21:00: a table booked at 19:00 likely means an echoing dining room and a cook still on a cigarette break, and jet lag from a transatlantic flight makes it worse still. Eat a late breakfast, then take the menú del día at lunch, often €13 to €16 for three courses and wine in La Latina, and use the 20:00 vermouth hour as your bridge. Don't stack the Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofía into one day: the Prado's Velázquez and Goya rooms alone take three hours, and the Reina Sofía closes on Tuesdays. The Prado's free slot, 18:00 to 20:00 Monday to Saturday, looks clever on paper, but the queue along Paseo del Prado can stretch past 45 minutes, leaving you two hurried hours inside.

At Barajas, use the official taxi rank. Any ride from the airport to anywhere inside the M-30 ring road currently carries a fixed fare of €33, so a driver who runs the meter or quotes €50 is breaking the rule. The Exprés Aeropuerto bus to Cibeles and Atocha costs €5 and runs around the clock, and Metro Line 8 adds a €3 airport supplement on top of your normal ticket. Once you're in the city, pickpockets concentrate under the Tío Pepe sign at Puerta del Sol and the Metro exits there, and Line 1 between Sol and Atocha draws the same attention. Near the Royal Palace and Almudena Cathedral, women press a sprig of rosemary into your palm and then demand money for a fortune, so keep your hands in your pockets and keep moving. The clipboard petition for a deaf charity on Calle Mayor is a distraction for theft. Madrid scores 7.4/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), and most of that gap comes from petty theft, not violence.

Madrid's summer is the other trap. In July and August the afternoon heat often passes 38°C, and the granite of Plaza Mayor radiates it back until after 22:00, so plan outdoor sights before 11:00. Many family-run bars close for all of August. Mid-October is gentler, with a clear 25.6°C evening on 14 October, though the dry air cools fast after dark, so pack a light layer. Skip the organised pub crawls starting at Sol: they charge entry to near-empty clubs at midnight, when Madrid bars don't fill until 01:00. For flamenco, a seated tablao such as Las Tablas near Plaza de España, where you hear the heel strikes from three metres away, beats the dinner-and-show packages that hotel desks sell for €80 or more.