Easy Daytrips to Take from Madrid, Spain

Madrid is a perfect base for seeing some of the highlights of Spain. In an hour or less, frequent buses and trains will get your family from a base in Madrid to some of Spain’s most popular destinations: Toledo, Segovia, Avila and the royal compound of El Escorial. Travel by train or bus is easy and perfect for families, saving the driver from the inevitable search for parking.

Toledo
A half-hour train ride from Madrid’s Puerta de Atocha-Almudena Grandes station brings you to the walled hilltop city of Toledo. Inside its medieval walls, Casco Histórico (Old Town) is a UNESCO World Heritage site, a warren of narrow streets and alleys where you’ll find shops selling the city’s traditional metalwork and other local crafts (kids will be attracted to displays of marzipan in colorful fruit shapes, another Toledo specialty).

The magnificent cathedral rivals Seville’s in grandeur and riches, especially the Capilla Mayor with its immense gilded altarpiece of Biblical scenes with life-sized figures. A 10^th-century mosque, later converted into a church, shows its original early Hispanic-Muslim architecture in its beautiful interior with horseshoe arches.

Segovia
Like Toledo, Segovia’s main attractions are in its medieval Old Town, an atmospheric labyrinth of winding streets, also a UNESCO World Heritage site. The monumental, 10-mile-long aqueduct, built more than 2,000 years ago, was constructed from more than 20,000 granite blocks using no cement — a marvel of Roman engineering.

Kids will also love the Alcazar with its fairy-tale towers and turrets rising majestically on a steep rock crag. You can be in Segovia in less than half an hour by train from Madrid’s Chamartín station.

Avila
Inside the ramparts of Avila’s perfectly preserved walls are medieval churches and convents, and exceptionally beautiful Renaissance palaces. Climb the ramparts and walk along the most complete medieval walls in all of Spain. At Puerta del Carmen, look for storks’ nests atop a slender tower. A bus from Madrid’s Estación sur de Autobuses takes an hour, faster than the 90-minute train ride.

El Escorial
A 40-minute train ride from Madrid’s Principe Pio station, the royal complex of El Escorial is another UNESCO World Heritage site, including the Royal Monastery and Palace of El Escorial. Art treasures and the richly furnished rooms of the palace can be a bit overwhelming to young kids, but a good guide can bring the characters in Spain’s dramatic history to life for them. Be prepared for lots of stairs if you visit the magnificent library — one of the world’s most beautiful.