Explorer Madrid

Retiro Park is a 1.4 km² park on the edge of central Madrid, laid out in the 1630s as the gardens of the royal Buen Retiro Palace and opened to the public in 1868. Beside its large boating lake stands the colonnaded monument to King Alfonso XII, and the park also holds the glass Palacio de Cristal of 1887, a rose garden and many statues.

La Neomudéjar is a centre for avant-garde and experimental art that opened in 2013 in the former railway workshops of the Madrid-Zaragoza-Alicante company beside Atocha station, a 19th-century brick building in the neo-Mudéjar style. It shows video art, urban art, performance and sound art, hosts artist residencies and keeps the engine that once powered the station.

Sweet Space Museum is an interactive art space inside the ABC Serrano shopping centre on Calle de Serrano. Its themed rooms, designed by artists such as Agatha Ruiz de la Prada and Alexandra Uzcátegui, include sensory installations and ball pits, and the Astrohub area holds creative workshops. A visit takes about an hour.

The Museo de América is a national museum in Madrid's Ciudad Universitaria devoted to the archaeology, art and ethnography of the Americas. Founded in 1941, it opened in 1965 in a brick building with a tower by Luis Moya and Luis Martínez-Feduchi. Its collection includes the Madrid Codex, one of four surviving Maya books, and the gold of the Quimbaya Treasure.

Las Ventas is Madrid's bullring, designed by José Espeliú in Neo-Mudéjar style with brick and ceramic tiles, finished in 1929 and inaugurated in 1931. It seats about 23,800 spectators. The visitor tour leads through the ring, the stands, the chapel and the bullfighting museum, while bullfights take place between March and October.

Parque de Atracciones de Madrid is a 20-hectare amusement park in the Casa de Campo, opened in 1969 and run by Parques Reunidos under a city concession. Its four zones hold roller coasters such as Abismo and Tarántula, the 63-metre Lanzadera drop tower, water rides and Nickelodeon Land, an area for young children opened in 2014.

The Santiago Bernabéu is Real Madrid's home ground in the Chamartín district, in use since 1947 and named after the club's long-serving president. A rebuild completed in late 2024 wrapped it in a steel skin and added a retractable roof, raising capacity to about 83,000. The Tour Bernabéu, opened in 1999, includes the club museum.

Zoo Aquarium de Madrid is a 20-hectare zoo in the Casa de Campo, opened in 1972; it is owned by the city and run by Parques Reunidos. Its animals are grouped by continent and include giant pandas, koalas, gorillas and orangutans, and the grounds also hold a saltwater aquarium. A road train runs through the park.

Faunia is a zoo and nature park on Avenida de las Comunidades in eastern Madrid, opened in 2001 and run by Parques Reunidos. Its 16 hectares hold more than 1,200 animals of about 170 species in themed ecosystems, among them a tropical jungle house with manatees, a polar building with over 100 penguins, a Madagascar forest and a nocturnal house.

The Metropolitano is the home ground of Atlético Madrid in the San Blas-Canillejas district. It began as the La Peineta athletics stadium, opened in 1994, and was rebuilt by the club and reopened in 2017 with a roof over all the stands and about 70,000 seats. Stadium tours include the club museum.