We arrived late at night and our Host had no problem with that. We were greeted at the apartment in person (The hosts live next door) and there was a nice bottle of Spanish wine to greet us. They were very helpful and gave us plenty of advise about some things to do in Madrid. The apt. is a 6 floor walk up(which I was aware of ) and since we were only going to climb the stairs once or twice a day. I didn't mind that at all. Its located in a perfect area and there are all kinds of restaurants and bakeries and anything you could need very close by. Plaza Mayor is only a couple of block away and that was our first stop and there are many cafe's in the square then just outside of that there is the market called "San Miguel de Mercado" there you can find some great Tapas, wine, beer Sangria and Vermut. Public transportation is also very close at hand and riding the metro or bus is simple and also taxi's are everywhere and affordable to get you where you need to go. There is also a tour bus operator just outside the plaza and they have the "Hop on Hop off" tour that we used for a day and they also have tour arraignments that can take you to other cities outside of Madrid. We took the tour to Toledo. It was fantastic and we enjoyed every day that we stayed in Madrid with all of the endless possibilities for food, entertainment and actives that were all at our finger tips, in part because of our close proximity to so many great things to do. The air conditioner in the apartment works very well so when we came home at night we could just turn it on and along with the two fans all three of us were comfortable in minutes. It's also nice and quite, so we had no problems with street noises or other things. We didn't really cook anything while we stayed there but I'm sure that there were all the needed things there to do so had we wished too. We did use the refrigerator and the coffee makers. The coffee was also supplied by our host and we bought some more there. The T.V. was nice to have also and worked with several channels. The bathroom is very small,but I found that to be the case just about everywhere we stayed at in Spain. The shower works good and does have good pressure. We also enjoyed a good WiFi signal that the host provided to us. and there is a washing machine inside the apartment that we did use to catch up on our dirty laundry and it did a fine job for us. If and when I ever stay in Madrid again This is the first place that I would try to stay at. We only wish that we could have spent even more...