When you land at Madrid Barajas Airport (MAD), you have two budget-friendly options for transport to your Madrid hotel: you can take the bus to the city centre (€2.50) or you can take the metro. The bus is very quick and you'll arrive to Plaza de Colón in 20 min. The fastest way to travel into town is by Metro, which is one of the oldest in Europe . At around 175 km. length, it's very comfortable, clean, and safe. It runs from 6.00 a.m. till 1.30 a.m. It can be taken from MAD to any point of interest. www.madrid-mad.com

You can also travel by bus and aervice is around the clock. After midnight, the night buses called Buhos start leaving from Plaza de Cibeles in all directions.

Bus and metro tickets are the same. The cheapest and easiest way to move around is by buying a Metrobus card with 10 tickets. It costs €5.80 and it can be used by more than 1 person. A single ticket costs €1.00.

You can also travel by the local trains Cercanias (check out http://www.renfe.es/empresa/cercanias/index.html) which has 4 main stations in town: Chamartin, Nuevos Ministerios, Recoletos and Atocha. These trains are very useful for travel to historical cities and villages like El Escorial, Toledo, or to the mountains around Madrid (Sierra de Guadarrama). The crew is also very helpful with directions to places such as Cercedilla, Navacerrada, Cotos (the ski-centers), etc. The ticket from the center of Madrid to El Escorial is about €3.20 one way, it is about €6.40 one way to Toledo and it is about €3.20 to the mountain. You can also buy 10 travel cards, which will cost roughly 30% less. These tickets are valid for more than one person.

Taxi: Taxi's should start with an initial charge of 1,65€, fare 1 is valid from 6h to 22h, only in the evenings, and on public holidays the fare is 2. There's an additional airport supplement charge of 4,20€. A Taxi from the airport to the city is around 20€, including the airport supplement.