This apartment is really special.
For my birthday a large group of friends were coming from across the globe to meet in Madrid. We needed somewhere we could all comfortably sleep, somewhere we could all happily eat and somewhere we’d want to hang out in the downtime before and after partying in the city.
Alicia and Juan’s apartment was perfect.
We ended up calling it the Apartment of Dreams.
There were thirteen of us and we all had a comfortable place to sleep. The best room for siestas was the girls room (la habitación con 'chicas' en la puerta) because it’s furthest from the main social space.
The kitchen was great, we really enjoyed sitting at the bar whilst the chef of the day made lunch. We made a communal diner on the Saturday: ten people sat at the long table and two sat at the kitchen bar. On the first night it was quite late by the time everyone had arrived so we followed Alicia’s recommendation and booked a table at Los Porfiados. We rang at ten, they seated us all at eleven and served us a fantastic first taste of Madrid.
The living room end of the main social space was lovely. It was comfortable and the perfect corner for chats and naps. It is right next to the boys room (i.e the one that doesn’t say girls on the door) so it has to be whispers after bed time (in theory, we never actually managed that)
We found a lovely surprise which I didn’t remember reading about on the listing: the balcony outside the girls room and facing inside the quad of the building. There were a LOT of sun soaked conversations held there, a perfect place to ease into the day.
We didn’t make loads of plans before we arrived in Madrid but we knew we wanted to go to the night club Kapital and the Reina Sofia Art Gallery. Both of these were in walking distance of the apartment. We only got taxis at the end of nights and when we went to the Malasaña area on the last night (which I would recommend though maybe not on a Sunday night)
I could go on for a while about this apartment and how great it was. Basically though, if you have the numbers to make it affordable stay here and know that for a few magical days you’ll have a wonderful corner of Madrid to call your own.