Visiting Madrid with a baby: Travel tips from Spanish father and founder of AI Travel Planner

Dear Tony,

Today on the blog we welcome Andrés Martinez to share his tips for visiting Madrid. Andrés is the Founder and CEO of Speakspots, a Spain and European-focused AI Travel Planner. He has traveled to 100+ cities in Europe (50+ of them in Spain) and has 8+ years of experience in Product and Tech across Mastercard, Deloitte, and the startup space (Speakspots, Aiia). From solo, to couple, to baby-friendly trips, he has tried it all in terms of travel formats. After having experienced dozens of issues while traveling (due to bad planning or lack of time), he is now driven to create the ultimate AI travel planning tool to save you hours planning a trip, while preventing any inconvenience from ruining your trip due to bad planning.

We hope you find this guest post as valuable as we did:

 

Introduction

I lived a total of 7 years in Madrid before I moved out to London in 2019. I recently came back to Madrid to spend a weekend with my wife and our baby, and even though we have been to Madrid a number of times before – this was the first time we came with a baby!

Based on my experience I will give you a few to-the-point tips for your next baby-friendly trip to Madrid. I will also recommend you what attractions to visit in Madrid with a baby, using a little bit of help from Speakspots WhatsApp travel assistant.

 

Avoid restaurants’ terraces

It is very tempting to sit on a terrace, especially if the weather is sunny. However, in Madrid it is legal to smoke in terraces. Furthermore, about 1 in 5 adults smoke according to Spain’s INE.

Therefore, it is highly probable that at least one of the people sitting in the table next to yours will be smoking. I talk from experience! I suggest you always book on the inside area of restaurants, to avoid any risks.

 

Move around in bus, rather than tube

Unfortunately, a significant number of tube stations in Madrid do not have a lift. As of September 2023, a total of 60 stations in Madrid didn’t have one.

Fortunately, buses are baby-friendly. It is easy to move onboard with the baby stroller, and perfectly legal to park it on the area reserved for wheelchairs. Remember to park the baby stroller opposed to the direction of travel and with the brake on.

However, I am going to provide you an itinerary that you can follow 100% on foot. And that can easily keep you busy for the whole weekend, if you take it easy with many relaxing cups of café con leche (like we did!).

 

My perfect baby-friendly itinerary for a weekend in Madrid

If you like long walks with a baby stroller and prefer to avoid any bus or taxis, you will love this itinerary. I suggest you follow Speakspots’ advice and start your day at the free-entry El Retiro park, where you can easily spend a morning with the baby. Make sure you don’t miss these two attractions inside the park: Estanque Grande and Palacio de Cristal.

From there, you are just 15 minutes by walk from Museo del Prado – the most popular museum in Madrid (and one of the top 20 museums in the world based in visitor volumes). You can have lunch nearby before going into the museum. I recommend the area of Antón Martín, nearby, to have lunch. There are plenty of good value-for-money traditional Spanish food restaurants in the area, at a reasonable budget.

You can spend the whole afternoon at Museo del Prado – it is just impossible to see everything at once. I have been there a few times, and never managed to see all of the artwork in one go. There are plenty of seating areas and rest rooms at the museum, which makes things easy for you and your baby.

On the second day, you can start the day at the Botanical Garden, to then walk North across Paseo del Prado, with a wide pedestrian area where it is easy to move with a baby stroller. Once you reach Puerta de Alcalá, you can turn left on Calle de Alcalá and then take Gran Vía. Both streets are wide and easy to move with a baby stroller.

I recommend that you either have lunch in Chueca or in Fuencarral area, which are nearby. You can access the area from Gran Vïa.

Afterwards, you can go from Gran Vía to Plaza del Sol through Calle de Preciados o Calle del Carmen. Both are very nice streets, and wide. Once you reach Puerta del Sol, that area of Sol and the City Centre are a little bit more crowded and have very narrow pedestrian areas sometimes. You can still go, but you may not be able to move easily everywhere. I did manage, but it was sometimes a little bit stressful to get stuck.

If you still have some extra time, you can go back to Gran Vía and move North across Calle de Fuencarral. Another long and wide street, lovely to walk through with a baby stroller.

I am sure you will love your weekend at Madrid like we did. With such long walks and green areas, it is a great weekend choice – especially in Spring!

 

How can Speakspots help you plan your trip to Madrid?

If you do not want to spend hours planning your next trip to Madrid, why don’t you try Speakspots? You just have to answer 10 questions about travel dates and preferences and Speakspots will prepare a customized itinerary for you in less than a minute. Here you can plan your 3-day itinerary in Madrid.

Plus, you can activate a WhatsApp assistant for free that can help you clarify any other baby travel questions you still have after reading my post. For example, I asked Speakspots for the best area to stay in Madrid with a baby:

Speakspots’ itinerary planning algorithms are based on my own travel experience and are designed to find the optimal balance between conflicting optimization factors such as: distance optimization, value for money optimization, prioritize high-rated over low-rated attractions, and many more!