Madrid gives away more than almost any capital: Goya's frescoes, a 2,200-year-old Egyptian temple and seven rubble hilltops with the best skyline in the city all cost nothing. Add €6 croquetas and €2.50 vermut and three days here barely dents a wallet.
A 2,200-year-old Nubian temple Egypt gifted Spain in 1968 after the Aswan Dam flooded its valley. Reassembled stone by stone facing west, so the reflecting pools mirror the sunset. Free entry Tue–Sun 10:00–20:00, closed Mondays.
Behind Pedro de Ribera's 1721 Churrigueresque doorway — the most extravagant in the city — sits a free museum tracing Madrid from Habsburg village to capital. The 1830 Gómez de Mora scale model is the highlight. Tue–Sun 10:00–20:00.
Goya painted this small 1798 chapel's dome with Madrid washerwomen and beggars instead of saints, and he is buried beneath it — headless. Admission is free, always. Tue–Sun 09:30–20:00; the identical chapel next door holds the services.
Thirty green wooden casetas have lined this sloping street below the Botanical Garden since 1925. Second-hand paperbacks from €1, vintage Madrid postcards, out-of-print art books. Open daily roughly 10:00–20:00, busiest Sunday mornings.
Madrid's least gentrified central market, under a 1958 vaulted roof in La Latina. Fishmongers, butchers and greengrocers sell at neighbourhood prices, and several stalls will cook what you buy for €3–5. Mon–Fri 09:00–14:00 and 17:00–20:00.
A cramped Malasaña bar open since 1921, known for croquetas the size of a thumb: classic jamón plus cabrales, spinach-and-gorgonzola and roquefort. Six for around €6, twelve for €11. Standing room only, and they sell out by mid-afternoon.
A 1944 Lavapiés market turned neighbourhood hybrid: Senegalese, Ecuadorian and Lebanese stalls beside a bookshop that sells second-hand paperbacks by weight. Craft beer at €2.50, full plates around €6. Open until 22:00 Thursday to Saturday.
An 1892 bodega with a tiled facade, vermut drawn from the barrel at €2.50 a glass, thick salmorejo and a tortilla sold by the wedge. You duck through a hatch to reach the back room. Cash preferred, everyone stands at the marble bar.
Ten kilometres of riverside park built over a buried motorway in 2011, with Dominique Perrault's shell-shaped Arganzuela footbridge, free outdoor gyms and a children's beach of jet fountains. Entry free; a BiciMAD e-bike day pass is about €4.
A Cecilio Rodríguez-designed park on the slope below Moncloa, with a rose garden of some 20,000 bushes that costs nothing to enter and concrete Civil War bunkers still sitting in the grass. Open around the clock, no ticket, no closing time.
A 1969 cable car swinging 2.5 km from Paseo del Pintor Rosales over the Manzanares into Casa de Campo, 40 metres up. From the far station Madrid's largest park spreads out — 1,700 hectares of pine and scrub, free to walk all afternoon.
Seven grass mounds in Vallecas that locals call Las Siete Tetas, raised from 1970s construction rubble. The unobstructed west-facing skyline over the whole city is why Madrileños bring a bottle and sit on the slope at sunset. Always open, free.