“Spacious” is the right word—this place is huge, with three bedrooms (one is locked and off-limits to guests), one and a half bathrooms, a full kitchen, a long hallway, massive closet space, and an enormous living/dining room. Everything was clean and well maintained. We spent five nights there but would gladly have spent a month or more.
It’s somewhat of a walk from the train station and major tourist sites (downhill, so easy with luggage or after a long day of visiting museums, and never really more than 20 minutes), but it’s in a real madrileño neighborhood, not as trendy or refined as some others, perhaps, but safe and convenient and relatively quiet despite its location on a major street. There are a few metro (Line 3) and cercanías stations in the vicinity, as well as BiciMad bikes and a constant stream of taxis right in front of the building.
Communicating with Marcelo before our trip was never a problem. The polite and helpful porter Miguel was not home when we arrived at our agreed time, but he responded to our text and materialized after less than an hour, which we were able to spend at Havana Blues across the street, so it wasn’t really such a problem. Partly our fault, as we had neglected to confirm with him that morning.
We never needed the air conditioning, nor did we cook much, but we did put the washing machine and laundry line outside the window to good use. A couple of very minor issues were the damp smell in the smaller bedroom (not entirely solved by opening the window) and a thrown circuit breaker when we used the toaster (easy to fix, as the electrical box is right inside the apartment door), neither of which would make us hesitate to stay there again.