Madrid: How to save money and time at the Prado Museum

The Museo del Prado in Madrid. Photo: emijrp

Widely considered the world’s best single collection of Spanish art, The Prado Museum, in central Madrid, is not to be missed. Priceless paintings and sculptures by Spanish masters like Goya, Velázquez, and El Greco, not to mention the largest collection of works by Italian masters outside Italy, are housed in a beautiful 18th-century government building.

Unfortunately, getting in for a closer look at Las Meninas can mean waiting in a long line at the museum’s main gate, slapping down €14, and elbowing your way through crowds for a stressful and expensive outing.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. See our best tips on saving money and time at the Prado, outlined below.

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1. Go first thing in the morning or at lunch hour

Get up early and arrive in the morning about 15 minutes before the museum opens at 10 am. You can book a budget hotel close by to save time. If you’re not an early riser, go in the afternoon and hang tight until just after Spanish lunch hour around 3 pm. Locals are busy eating lunch, and big tour groups have already been in and out, on their way to the next big Madrid attraction.

2. Save during free admission times

Don’t want to fork over the €14 entry fee? Go from 6 pm to 8 pm on Mondays through Saturdays, and 5 pm to 7 pm on Sundays and holidays when admission is free. Of course, you might decide you’d prefer to pay when you see the long line. Come prepared with a book, or a friend that you like having long, public conversations with.

For the smallest crowds, try Mondays through Wednesdays. Madrid isn’t just the Spanish capital, it’s also a college town, and that means Thursdays through Sundays are weekends for broke students on the prowl for free things to do. If you’re interested in the temporary exhibitions, book them during the free evening schedule for half off, then head to the Jerónimos entrance for temporary exhibition ticket holders. The line is usually shorter there. Just remember, last admission is 30 minutes before closing, and the galleries are cleared 10 minutes before lights out.

If it’s an hour until closing and you just joined a long line, you might be better off coming back the next day. Waiting until the last minute may mean you don’t get to go at all. Daring visitors can try to go in through the gift shop during free afternoons — just ask the guard at the door if you can go into the shop, then carry on into the museum after pretending to browse books and postcards.

You can expect big crowds around the famous Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez. Photo: cea

3. Map out what you want to see ahead of time

Scope out the art you want to see before you go on the Prado’s website. There’s even a downloadable Museum plan if you want to get familiar with which floors you want to visit. The museum site also has an explore the collection page where you can search the collection by artist, concept, century, and school of painting, among other qualifiers. If you’re overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of the art on exhibition, a good jumping off point to decide what you want to see is the Prado’s masterpiece page. Notable highlights by Spanish artists include Velazquez’s Las Meninas and Goya’s Maja, in clothed and naked versions.

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4. Know your entrance gates

The Prado is a big museum. So it’s no surprise it has multiple points of entry — five to be exact. Unfortunately, for the average tourist, you can only buy tickets at two of them, both on Felipe IV Street in Plaza de Goya. Only one of these, the Puerta de Goya Baja, offers the full range of concessions and discounted tickets. At the Puerta de Goya Alta, automated ticket machines can mean shorter lines, but you’ll have to pay full price. The other gates, Puerta de Velázquez, Puerta de los Jerónimos, and Puerta de Murillo are points of access only with no tickets for sale.

The Murillo entrance line is usually shorter than the others, but it’s technically only for educational and cultural groups. Sometimes the gatekeeper will usher you on through, but you run the risk of ending up at the end of the line.

5. Go on a beautiful winter day

Winter in Madrid is slow, with the exception of the busy holiday season around Christmas and New Year. Even on colder sunny days, more tourists and locals choose to stay outside and soak up the sun in Madrid’s parks and green spaces.

6. Reserve your tickets online

Shell out an extra euro to skip the line at the Goya entrances and breeze through the entrances reserved for tickets bought ahead of time. Book online before you go.

7. Buy a combination Art Ticket

If you know you want to visit the Prado, the Thyssen, and the Reina Sofia, the art museums that make up Madrid’s golden triangle, and you’re going to be in Madrid for a good amount of time, then splurge on the Paseo del Arte. You have an entire year from the date of the visit selected upon purchase to visit all three, and it’ll save you over €6 when compared to buying the full-price tickets individually.