I have visited Madrid several times and did not realize that you can a) go into the Palacio de…read moreCibeles and b) that it is free. My bf made this discovery when he was exploring while I was at work. Great discovery! After entering through a security/bag check, you walk upstairs onto the 2nd floor. There is a tourist office as well as a large relaxing/working space. An exhibit offers an overview of the commitment to green spaces in English and Spanish. The floors above house the history of the building, including the architecture and design. There are also special exhibits featuring different artists. If you are visiting before early May 2026, I highly recommend Ana Juan's "Wunderkammer" exhibition. Beautiful and thought provoking! There is an observation deck that can be accessed for €4. It was closed in mid-Feb for technical repairs without a confirmed reopening date. Hopefully it will be available to the public again soon! A bit farther away but you can always venture to the top of the Riu hotel for incredible views.

So I was sad because I bought a ticket to go on the rooftop, but it was raining, so I couldn't. But…read morethey refunded me automatically, so that was good. So instead I meandered between floors looking at all the art waiting for the rain to dissipate a bit. Some was cool, some I didn't get, to each their own. It's a gorgeous building and worth a visit if you have the time. I'll have to come back for the rooftop next time!

I came to the post office with 3 post cards that I needed to send home. Some of us actually do…read morestill write letters believe it or not. They speak English and Spanish 100%, however, thought that I would practice my Spanish which I just butchered in error. The guy at the til face palmed, gave me the stamps and told me that I needed to keep practising Spanish. It was painful for him to listen to me form the sentence and then start again. A sentence like, "I need to send this to Canada" took 10 minutes. In case you're wondering it takes 92 cents to send a letter from Madrid to Canada 12 days vs. $1.29 from Canada to the US.....think about that one for a sec.

Despite the fact that my package only contained used personal books, nothing else, and books are…read moresupposed to be duty free (as are used personal items) they held my package for about a month after arrival for payment of duty. I eventually received a letter that I had to pay a duty to get my package released, but the due date was for 2 weeks prior to the date I received the notice. So my package was shipped back to the US. Cost me around $250 in shipping, plus the loss of a box of books I needed and can't get in Spain. I love Spain, but the inept bureaucracy here makes living difficult at times.

There is a post office at the Madrid airport! It is located in the Arrivals Hall of Terminal 1,…read morewhich is the ground floor. I was fortunately able to get stamps and post my remaining postcards. Everything was straightforward and the staff woman was kind. It's only open in the morning and early afternoon and closed on Sundays.

[NOTE: My one prior experience with CORREOS -- which is apparently Spain's national postal service…read more-- was not bad. This is about Correos EXPRESS . . . and frankly, I don't know what their relationship to Correos is.] For an Etsy purchase, the merchant (located in Spain) used Correos Express. (Thanks so much, Mr. Trump. Thanks to your crazy, chaotic, impulsive, vengeful tariffs, foreign merchants doing business on Etsy, eBay and other platforms -- who've never done any harm to me or mine, to the USA, or to you and your fellow MAGA crazies -- have had to scramble to find shipping solutions.) In a nutshell: Correos Express tracking information was almost entirely worthless. If you're waiting for an item that's expensive and/or fragile, and you want to be sure to be home when it arrives so that it isn't stolen, the C.E. tracking won't help at all in that regard. Once the parcel reached the US, C.E. indicated that it was on one of "their" vehicles. (Um, no; not really. They don't do the final delivery.) The next day they said it was "in distribution". (Well, let's attribute that word to funky translation from Spanish. I think they meant it was out for delivery.) But, to be delivered by WHOM? USPS? UPS? DHL? FedEx? Other? No clue . . . and no disclosure of the new tracking number connected with that company. My item arrived at my large apartment complex completely out of the blue . . . and sat in our lobby, subject to some of the sticky fingers that live here, until a friend spotted it 5 hours later and brought it to me. And, as of now (more than 6 hours after delivery), C.E. tracking hasn't been updated. Oh, yes: Shipping document tacked onto my parcel shows that FedEx did the final delivery. Thanks, again, C.E., for not giving me that heads up.

I don't have a reason to give this place more than 1 star. I know it probably doesn't even matter…read moresince they are a government establishment but I am going to write about my experience either way. So my number is called and I approach a woman. No hello, no smile. Nothing. She just stares at me. I inform her I need to send a package to the United States and would like to consult the cost. I gave her my envelope and and informed her I would it to arrive as soon as possible and if she can give me a time frame. She told is no time frame available for the United States, but it would cost 44 euros to send it the fastest way possible which was express. What a terrible way to run a business. You expect the customer to pay that much for a service and they basically have no idea what they are paying for. What a shame. The next part was brutal. I understand I am in a Spanish speaking country and it can be difficult to communicate with others at times. But she made no effort at all to work with me. If I did not understand what she said she just kept repeating the word or sentence at the same rate. I speak enough Spanish that you can try to rephrase or explain what you want to say and in the end we can understand one another. Finally her co-worker saw my frustration and rephrased the word in English. This woman has been sitting next to her the whole time and never tried to help until that moment. Shocker! Seriously! Next time I am using UPS.