City Camping | Madrid

30th July - 1st August 2021
Area de Autocaravanas Las Cigüeñas |  Polígono atalayuela, 28031 Madrid, Spain
What3Words:   ///galaxy.stealing.benched
Free Walking Tour : https://www.neweuropetours.eu/madrid-walking-tours/

We love city camping! There is something very special about being able to take your home to a new city and use it as a base to explore.  Neither Steve nor I had ever spent any real time in Madrid, I had organised a couple of events there but hadn’t seen anything outside of the hotel walls so we were both very excited to explore the Spanish Capital.

We don’t mind paying for great campsite facilities when we know that we are going to use them. But when we visit cities we plan to be up and out of the van early and not returning until late, so our number one priority when looking for a city parkup is security. We just want a safe place to park, oh and electricity. Electricity was actually very important as the temperature in Madrid in August is typically in the 40*s - Ooosh!

Rather than picking a fancy campsite, we found an Aire on Park4Night. Area de Autocaravanas Las Cigüeñas is brand new and we couldn’t even find a website, but we could see it on Google Maps. Thankfully when we arrived there was plenty of space for us to park up and relax. At some point in the future, this aire will have toilet and washing facilities and probably even a small pool. But for now, the area is just a carpark with a fence and a lovely couple running the site.

After a nice cool night’s sleep (thank you Air Conditioning!!!), we booked an Uber and rode 15 mins into the city centre.  One of our absolute tip top favourite activities is a FREE walking tour. We love that the guides are local experts, they are fantastic at bringing the city and it’s secret (or not so secret) history to life. Technically they are not free as you pay in tips.  The better the guide, the more we like to tip - not that we have ever had a bad guide!  The city tour covered only a small geographical area, but Madrid is quite hilly and we were all grateful that we picked a day where the temperature didn’t raise any higher than 27*.

For lunch we dined on the local speciality of Calamari Sandwiches and Potato Tortilla. The omelette was divine and became a staple of our lunches for the rest of the trip (Lidl’s own is excellent!). Tired and hot after our day of exploring, we caught an uber back to the van and enjoyed a relaxing evening listening to the owner on his decks.

Area de Autocaravanas Las Cigüeñas is a brilliant and convenient no frills park up perfect for a visit to Madrid.  For now, it’s only good for visitors in self contained units, but in the future it could be open to everyone.