4 Best Sights in Madrid, Spain

A contemporary and adversary of Cervantes, Lope de Vega (1562–1635) wrote some 1,800 plays and enjoyed great success during his lifetime. His former home is now a museum with an intimate look into a bygone era: everything from the whale-oil lamps and candles to the well in the tiny garden and the pans used to warm the bedsheets brings you closer to the great dramatist. Thirty-five-minute guided tours in English are by reservation only (either by phone or email) and run through the playwright's professional and personal life—including his lurid love life—while touching on 17th-century traditions.

This stately mansion of writer and editor José Lázaro Galdiano (1862–1947) is a 10-minute walk across the Castellana from Museo Sorolla. Its remarkable collection spans five centuries of Spanish, Flemish, English, and Italian art. Bosch's St. John the Baptist and a number of Goyas are highlights, with El Greco's San Francisco de Assisi and Zurbarán's San Diego de Alcalá close behind. This museum can be seen as part of the Abono Cinco Palacios, a €12 pass that grants access to five local mansion-museums.

In 2019, this working palace belonging to the House of Alba, one of Spain's most powerful noble families, formally opened to the public. Its sumptuous halls and creaky passages are hung with works selected from what many consider to be Spain's finest private art collection—you'll spot Titians, Rubens, Velázquezes, and other instantly recognizable paintings. In the library, Columbus's diaries from his voyage to the New World are on display as well as the first Spanish-language Bible and other priceless official documents. The neoclassical palace was built in the 18th century but was bombed during the Spanish Civil War (only the facade survived); its collection of works thankfully were safeguarded during the conflict. The Duchess of Alba oversaw the reconstruction of the palace to its precise original specifications.  Visits are by tour only, but if online tickets are sold out, try your luck as a walk-in.

A Moderniste palace commissioned in 1902 by the businessman and politician Javier González Longoria, the Palacio de Longoria was built by a disciple of Gaudí. The winding shapes, the plant motifs, and the wrought-iron balconies are reminiscent of Gaudí's works in Barcelona. The building's jewel is its main iron, bronze, and marble staircase, which is unfortunately off-limits to tourists because the building is now in private hands.