Beautiful Madrid! Best place to End and Start a New Year

Looking for the best place to end and start a new year? Then brush up on your Spanish and book a trip to beautiful Madrid! A city that is world renowned for it’s culture, history, and legendary nightlife (among other great things). If you want to end the year with a bang and bring in the new year exploring one of the truly great cities of the world then I hope you enjoy reading our family’s fun adventure there and plan your own visit to Madrid, the city of the “Bear and the Strawberry Tree” (villa del Oso y el Madroño).

Where to Stay // Day one – Arrival

Madrid has so many iconic places to explore and visit (both in the city and within a couple of hours drive). For this reason, we decided to keep our focus on this area of Spain during our stay. We chose an Airbnb that was centrally located in the middle of all the action and a couple of blocks away from Puerta del Sol. Our apartment was located on Calle de Espoz y Mina and surrounded by restaurants, bars, and shopping stores. Everything we needed was either on our street or within a block or two.

As I mentioned before on my Ecuador post , whenever you’re visiting a city that is as old and has such rich history as Madrid does, you have to stay in the historic district. Most of the amazing sites you want to see are concentrated within walking distance and all modes of public transportation feed into and out of this area. You can’t go wrong with staying anywhere near Puerta del Sol.

We arrived to our apartment around 2 in the afternoon, dropped our luggage off, and immediately started exploring our surroundings. Our first order of business was finding something to eat and buying power converters (yes I made that rookie mistake!). After our first Spanish meal (at Las Bravas), we walked down to Puerta del Sol to see all the preparations that were taking place in anticipation of the upcoming new year’s eve celebrations. It was a beautiful scene and the place was buzzing with people and excitement.

Day one conclusion – Tired but ready to take on Madrid!

Our kids were exhausted. I had scored $300 RT tickets per person but they came at a price of flying the scenic route (Houston to Atlanta to Miami to Madrid). My wife and I decided to drop them off at the apartment and we went to the grocery store to buy food, water, snacks, etc. for our stay. After that was off our plate, me and her went to have some wine and tapas. You have to make a stop at La Casa del Abuelo and have the Gambas al Ajillo!

We didn’t come all this way to sleep! 😎

Day 2 part one// NYE – Explore, prepare, and celebrate!

Our second day began with much more energy! Everyone was well rested and we again had perfect weather to look forward to. Fortune was on our side as temperatures were mild for that time of year. We got an early start to take advantage. The docket was full and we had a lot of ground to cover. Today we would be exploring the following sites:

• Plaza Mayor
• Palacio Real
• Templo de Debod
• Plaza Santa Ana

Plaza Mayor

This vibrant town square had plenty of old world charm and still had Christmas stands and decorations when we visited. It was once the center of Old Madrid and standing there in the plaza one could imagine how life might have been back then. We took lots of pics and then purchased some funny hats for our kids to wear later in the evening for NYE. We then made our way out through one of the many side streets that lead to/away from the plaza.

The Plaza Mayor was not far from our Airbnb but we definitely got sidetracked exploring all of the colorful calles (streets). In my opinion, this is the best way to truly discover Madrid. Since we had not eaten breakfast, we had built up an appetite for some food and found La Esquina de San Miguel. It was perfect and just what we needed to refuel and take a break. Try the Huevos Rotos if you eat there.

Palacio Real

Next on our list was the Palacio Real. This opulent and imposing palace was once the residence of the Spanish royal family. We were disappointed that we could not enter to take the tour. It was closed very early due to holiday (NYE) hours. All we could do was admire it from the outside. We went ahead and toured the beautiful cathedral that was next to it. Pro tip – Always check hours of operation ahead of time, especially around the holidays.

We continued to explore the surrounding area and it was a delightful walking experience. We went from statue to statue and picturesque side street to equally impressive main thoroughfare. As we made our way to our next stop, we took another break and sat at one of the park benches. It’s always good to slow things down and take it all in. We talked and people watched for a while before moving on to the Egyptian temple.

Templo de Debod

Our last stop this afternoon was the Egyptian temple of Debod. This shrine was originally erected in southern Egypt and gifted to Spain in the late 1960’s. It was rebuilt and installed in Madrid’s Parque de Oeste and is a must see site when you visit. All the Madrid guides will tell you to visit this temple at sunset to watch how the sun hits the pillars. There are some great pics on the internet showing this but we could not wait for the sun to set. It was NYE and we had to return to our apartment to get our late afternoon siesta in. We had to recharge for the night.

Day 2 part two // NYE night!

We took an Uber back to our apartment, cooked a meal, and rested up for what we knew would be a long night. The Madrid police had began blocking off streets heading into Puerta del Sol earlier in the morning. They were funneling people towards 2 heavily manned entrances to control the number of revelers allowed into the area. It was announced in the weeks leading up to NYE that only 7,000 people would be let into the square to bring in the new year. All of the restrictions were due to Covid.

Our plan was to be part of that 7K and watch the fireworks up close, eat the 12 grapes, and the whole nine yards. Well things turned out differently and in hindsight I should have game planned differently. Remember that our visit was in year 2 of the Covid epidemic so things were different for us.

Madrid NYE Puerta del Sol

I did some reading on the NYE traditions of Madrid peeps prior to arriving and most blogs mentioned that typically the new year is brought in at home. After this, the people head to the historic district to party well into the night/dawn. I had read those attending Madrid’s NYE at Puerta del Sol did not have to plan a strategy like people do for New York’s time square celebration. You don’t have to wear diapers or begin finding a space by late in the morning and then not move from that area until the ball drops. Most people we talked to leading up to the evening mentioned heading to PDS around 9 at night. You’ll be fine they assured us.

This year they were all wrong. All of them. The blogs, the locals, no one had a read on this particular year, lol. Every single street leading to Puerta del Sol was packed. There were people everywhere! All the bars and restaurants were full. We headed out at 8:30 to get in line and knew deep down inside that we were probably not going to make it into the main area. These people had been dealing with lockdowns, restrictions, and were denied celebrating New Years the previous year. You best believe they were going to make up for it this year.

NYE – Plan B

As you can see in our pictures above, the lines leading to PDS were long and slow moving. Luckily there were plenty of street vendors selling beer, liquor, grapes, and all assortments of glow sticks. So we all drank with our new friends in line, people watched, and eyed the clock. At around 11 pm or so I moved my family to a better location. We knew we weren’t going to be let into the main square so we partied and brought the new year in the streets with thousands of other Madrileños.

It was a fun time nonetheless. The streets were full and there was joy and relief in the air. We did the countdown and brought the new year in with spirits high. We lost track of how many beers we drank but those street vendors made sure we never lacked a drink. It was our first time celebrating New Year’s in a different country. We hugged, kissed, made videos for social media, and called some family back home. I found it funny because we were definitely feeling good and it was only 5 pm there in Houston.😎

NYE – After midnight

After bringing in the new year in the streets of Madrid and getting our fill of pics, videos, and selfies we were left with a small dilemma. What now? I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought that one through. I wanted to party all night at the bars and clubs around but we had my 15 year old daughter with us. I told my family “let’s walk back towards our apartment and we’ll figure it out”. Along the way back, it was just an incredible scene of joy and celebration. People were literally everywhere. The cabs and Ubers kept coming like an assembly line, dropping off new revelers throughout the night. The night was just starting for them.

NYE – Dinner at 1 am

We made the safe play and decided to have “dinner” at 1 am. All of us were pretty hungry from all the walking and drinking. We selected a restaurant that was literally one door down from our apartment. A couple of last rounds and then it was grub time. The place was packed but we got lucky as some patrons were leaving just as we walked in. It was the perfect ending to what had been a perfect day and night. And though we didn’t get into the main square, we were more than content with the memories we made.