So in Spain, 'hostal' does not actually mean what 'hostel' means in the rest of the world.
Instead, think of a 'hostal' as a small, independently-owned and usually affordable hotel. (Wikipedia explains further - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostal)
Conveniently located near to a couple of Metro stations (we arrived via the Santa Domingo stop, but I think Callao is much easier if you have suitcases since there are elevators at that station), Hostal Gala had some of the friendliest employees of any place we stayed in Europe.
(Of course, I don't the employees were actually Spanish. The first one was definitely Bulgarian, which continued a theme on this past trip of running into friendly Bulgarians. I have nothing but good impressions of Bulgarians now!)
We were very kindly upgraded from a standard hostal room into one of the larger apartment-size rooms that Hostal Gala offers. Fantastic!
It was wonderful to have some space, a large table for eating/writing, and even a refrigerator and other kitchen appliances.
Even though we looked over a busy plaza, the noise level really was not bad.
We did have trouble figuring out how to use the window shutters. In fact, we didn't even realize there *were* window shutters until our last night there. I just thought that Spaniards were heavy sleepers who didn't mind only having gauzy curtains to (slightly) darken the room. Well, I guess this would be basic information for most Europeans, but perhaps Gala could explain shutter operation to clueless Americans.
I appreciated the free wi-fi.
Other issues? The shower drained poorly and the bathroom itself was tiny. But those are manageable problems when you are only paying 70 Euro a night for an apartment-size room.
So overall, I'd have to recommend Gala. We only stayed two nights, then visited Toledo and changed to a different hotel when we came back to Madrid, but I wish we had stayed at Gala the entire time. read more