The Palacio Real in Madrid is literally the largest palace in Western Europe with 3,418 rooms. The number of rooms that are open to the public are …. 29!  But, while you are seeing barely fraction of the place, you can really get a good idea of how ornate and beautiful the rooms were and continue to be.  

We purchased the audioguide, which was very well put together with about 1.5 minutes of explanation in each room, which was enough for me, and more than enough for the kids.  The silver room and porcelain room both had over three minutes of talking, which we completely skipped due to lack of interest.  They give you a large Samsung Phablet which provides extra photos and information along with an earpiece.  Mine was a bit janky, but the other three worked pretty great.  I would highly recommend getting the audioguide at 5 Euros as it will give you a ton more information than what is on the placards in each room, but not too much to get boring.  If you want to use your own device, you can download the guide through an app for 4 Euros. There are guided tours as well, but the guided tours that are hosted by the Palace are all in Spanish, so if you want a tour in English, you will need to hire your own guide.  

The rooms that are open to the public in the palace show you some of the main rooms for official business including the Room of Columns, the Banquet Room and the Throne Room as well as a few others.  You also get to see the King and Queen’s apartments, although they are not used anymore, and not adorned with all original furnishings as it might have looked in the 1700s.  

Our favorite room, though was the stucco room,  not because of the stucco adornments on the walls, but because on display there was the Caravaggio painting, Salome with the head of John the Baptist.  This painting is not always on display at the Palacio, so this was an extra special moment for us.  If you follow this page, you will know that we are on a quest to see every Caravaggio painting on public display in the world, so this ticked a big box that would not have been possible before February of this year, as it was previously not on display.  As for the painting, I could not take a photo, but it was really a weird one, with a big dark space on the left, and really a lot of details in the face of the old woman in the painting. A recent restoration in 2015 revealed a faint, delicate yellow scarf on Salome which was previously not visible.  The head of John the Baptist was not as gory or gross as I would’ve expected, in fact, there was no blood at all, and it looked more serene than gross.  We were super hyped to be able to view this painting, although I don’t think our 10 and 12 year olds were as impressed. 

We went to the armory after walking the rooms of the palace, which, to me, is extremely boring, but my husband enjoyed it.  I always think that child armor is creepy and weird.  The palace has a nice sized gift shop, though we mainly skipped it.  

Considering how packed Madrid seems right now, I was surprised that the line to get into the palace was only about 15-20 people long at around 11am on a Sunday.  This is a really nice stop for about an hour, and again, I would recommend getting the audioguide.  Tickets to visit the palace are also not super expensive – 12 Euro for adults, 6 for kids.  The audioguides were 5 Euro each.  

If you are in Madrid, make an effort to see the largest palace in Western Europe.  Even if you can only see 29 of the 3,418 rooms, it’s definitely a lovely stop.