Our program allows you plenty of time to discover your new country, culture and customs. Below are some of our recommended highlights. Some tours and packages can be organized when booking your program, please see the program price page for more information.

City Tour

Madrid is best known for its 'Golden Triangle' of art museums (Prado, Reina Sofía and Thyssen-Bornomisza). The celebrated Art Walk (Paseo del Arte) links all three. The city's focal point remains the Puerta del Sol - the eastern gate (puerta) of the city in the 15th century.

The monument of the bear and madroño (strawberry tree), in the centre of the square, symbolises Madrid. The Calle Mayor leads west from Sol, to the Plaza Mayor, which evokes the splendor of Spain's Golden Age. The wide Calle de Alcalá - a grandiose thoroughfare constructed in the reign of Charles III - leads east of Sol, towards the Plaza de Cibeles. The fountain, with its statue of a Greco-Roman fertility goddess astride a lion drawn chariot, is a landmark instantly recognizable to all Spaniards. .

The Madrid cityscape is softened by numerous green spaces - lovely squares, such as the Plaza de Oriente, in front of the Royal Palace, and parks, most obviously the landscaped Parque del Buen Retiro and Jardín Botánico (Botanical Gardens) near the Prado.

museo del prado (prado museum)
The 213-year-old Prado Museum has undergone an extensive renovation to reclaim its position among Europe's greatest galleries. Within its 4000-strong collection of 16th- to early 19th-century paintings, are masterpieces by Fra Angelico, Botticelli, El Bosco, Titian, Rembrandt and Velázquez, as well as evidence of the astonishing development of Goya - from his sun-soaked early paintings of dances and festivities to the grim madness of his black period.

museo thyssen-bornemisza (thyssen-bornemisza museum)
Madrid purchased the private collection of Hans-Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza after a nine-and-a-half-year loan, instantly enriching the city's fund of art treasures. The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza collection contains over 800 paintings, sculptures, carvings and tapestries, ranging from primitive Flemish works to contemporary pieces. Highlights include works by Fra Angelico, Van Eyck, Dürer, Caravaggio and Rubens.

museo nacional centro de arte reina sofía (reina sofia national art centre museum)
This museum in the former Hospital de San Carlos is almost entirely dedicated to 20th-century Spanish art and was designed to give Spain a museum to equal France's Pompidou Centre and London's Tate Gallery. In 1986, Queen Sofía opened the museum, British architect Ian Ritchies' glass lifts were installed in 1990 and, in 1992, the star attraction - Picasso's Guernica - added the final flourish. .

The painting depicts the horrific Nazi bombing of the Basque country's traditional capital in April 1937 (in support of Franco's cause in the Spanish Civil War). Drawing hundreds of visitors daily, Guernica has not ceased to attract controversy. Dalí, Miró and Juan Gris are among the other artists on show.

palacio real (royal palace)
With the opulence of Versailles in mind, Philip V commissioned Italian architects Giambattista Sacchetti and Francesco Sabatina to build the Royal Palace. The present king, Juan Carlos, resides in the more subdued Zarzuela Palace outside Madrid, so Philip's 3000-room extravaganza is now only used for state functions. .

The rest of the time, the startling white building in granite and Colmenar stone is open for tours. Highlights include the Hall of Halbardiers and Hall of Columns (with their splendid frescoes), the Throne Room (with its 17th-century sculptures) and the lavish private apartments of Charles II.

plaza mayor (main square)
Once the location of an exotic marketplace, where Arab merchants came to sell their wares, this beautifully proportioned, cobbled courtyard was begun by Philip II and completed by Philip III in 1619 - his statue stands proudly in the middle. The plaza was intended to serve as a marketplace and showplace - heretics were burned at the stake, saints canonised and bread was sold. Today, tourists outnumber the locals but the Plaza Mayor is still lively as it was in the past.

parque del buen retiro (retiro park)
This lush 118-hectare (292-acre) park in the heart of Madrid was formerly the private garden of Philip IV. Visitors can enjoy a stroll among the trees and rose garden, a boat ride on the lake near the towering 1902 monument to Alfonso XII, tarot readings from hovering fortune-tellers or a game of chess. .

Art buffs may seek out exhibition spaces Palacio de Cristal, Palacio de Velázquez and the Casa de Vacas or the notorious Angel Caído (Fallen Angel) statue on the south avenue of the Palacio de Cristal.

convento de las descalzas reales (convent of the royal barefoot sisters)
Founded in 1564 by Joanna of Austria, the daughter of Charles V, the convent has housed royal and aristocratic nuns over the centuries. Still a functioning convent, it is also a superb example of 16th-century Baroque architecture, containing a magpie's hoard of rich tapestries and jewels, Italian and Flemish art and a superb display of Spanish religious artefacts. One tiny painting has been attributed to Goya.

parque biológico (biology park)
The theme of this new, attractively landscaped theme park is bio-diversity. Each of the ten pavilions has been specially designed to recreate a different natural environment, with the aim of demonstrating how life - animal life in particular - has learned to adapt to a variety of ecosystems. Thanks to the latest high-tech wizardry, visitors can 'experience' a tropical storm, take a stroll through the rain forest or watch rivers of molten lava flowing 1000m (3281ft) beneath the earth's surface.

faro de moncloa (light of moncloa)
The Moncloa observation tower in the university district is open to the public, offering visitors panoramic views of Madrid from the flying-saucer-shaped viewing deck. The tower was designed by architect Salvador Arroyo in 1992, to monitor traffic congestion.

nightlife
Street life reaches rush-hour proportions at 0400 - hardcore hedonists revel on until the following afternoon. While the busiest nights are Friday and Saturday (with Thursday a close runner-up), the locals go out every night and miraculously manage to work or study during the day. .

Perhaps the secret to endless energy lies in the tradition of consuming tapas - snacks of olives, anchovies, chorizo sausages, gambas (deep-fried shrimp) and Madrid's specialities of orejas (pig's ears), callos (tripe), mollejas (sweetbreads), snails in hot sauce and bull's testicles..

Nightlife centres on three major districts: Chueca (Madrid's gay village - also a trendy location for straights), Calle Huertas (traditional Spanish music, smart clubs and bars) and around the Plaza del Dos de Mayo in the Malasaña district (favoured by a hip young crowd).

culture
Madrid has had its fair share of cultural icons - Surrealist genius Salvador Dalí lived in the city as a student, as did film-maker Luis Buñuel and Ernest Hemingway hung around for a while to write his masterpieces. Today, Madrid's cultural temperature is still high. With a distinctive dancing style (chotis) and music (zarzuela) of its own, as well as the best Spanish performers and directors, a gem of an opera house, cinemas like palaces, and year-long festivities, Madrid's cultural scene is best described as 'exuberant'.

excursions

monasterio de san lorenzo de el escorial
The monastery lies just 50km (31 miles) northwest of Madrid, in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. The extraordinary rectangular edifice with four spired towers was built by Philip II - as a memorial to his father, Charles V - and merges monastery, church and palace. It contains Philip's secret stash of El Greco and Hieronymus Bosch art, as well as a library with about 50,000 volumes and a vaulted, painted ceiling.

toledo
Often described as the 'soul of Spain', Toledo lies 70km (43 miles) south of Madrid and is easily reached by bus, car or train. The capital of Visigoth Spain (AD567-711), Toledo was famously depicted in the dramatic cityscape by El Greco (painted in 1597 and currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York). The Crete-born painter, Domenikos Theotocopoulos - whose Spanish appellation, El Greco, has stuck - settled in Toledo in 1577 and remained there until his death in 1614. Regarded as the first great genius of the Spanish School, some of his most famous paintings are jealously guarded here.