Anywhere in the city center is fine. Central Madrid, which includes the areas you mentioned, is compact and very walkable. Use Google Maps to look up locations of hotels/hostels, and don’t stay too far from Puerta del Sol which, for your purposes, consider it the heart of central Madrid. Once there, just walk around, you’ll eventually run into busy areas at night.

Madrid’s Barajas airport can be reached by the Metro system, by commuter rail (Cercanías), or express bus.

Madrid’s metro system is extensive; you don’t need to worry too much about being near a station…you’ll always be walking distance from one. But if you want, you can again use Google Maps to find a hotel/hostel that’s as close to a station as possible. Really, I wouldn’t fret about it though.

But I do advise you leave at least 3 hours before your flight to get to the airport. The airport is pretty far, which means there will be several stops on the way there (like taking NYC’s Subway from Manhattan all the way to JFK). My advice is to have a map of Madrid’s metro system on you, because unlike other metro systems, you will not find a system-map anywhere in any station nor in any of the trains…at least as of the last time I was there in 2010. And on each train, they have maps of each individual line, rather than just the line you’re on, which can get confusing, especially if you forget which line you’re on.

Barajas airport is served by line 8 of the Metro. There’s two separate stops on line 8: there’s Aeropuerto T1 – T2 – T3, which as the name suggests, is the stop to get off at if you’re headed to terminals 1, 2, or 3. And the other stop is Aeropuerto T4 for terminal 4. In between these two stops is a stop called “Barajas” which is the suburb of Barajas, and not the airport; so don’t let that confuse you.

For the suburban/commuter rail option (the Cercanías), line C-1 connects Atocha station near central Madrid with Barajas’ terminal 4. There’s also the Recoletos station (look for it on a map) in central Madrid, where you can also catch the C-1 train to Barajas. The advantage of taking the Cercanías train would be fewer stops to the airport; the disadvantage is that there’s fewer stations in central Madrid. I’ve never used the Cercanías to get to Barajas; my guess is that if you’re headed to terminals 1/2/3, you would have to get off at T4 take the metro two stops away to terminals 1/2/3. Maybe there’s an inter-terminal bus too, but the Metro option (to get from T4 to T1/2/3) is certain.

Lastly, there’s an express bus from central Madrid to Barajas. See here: http://www.emtmadrid… Click on the UK flag in the top right to translate into English (or French, Italian, or German, if you prefer).

Start your evening at El Tigre.