Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

How to visit without the Prado fatigue

The Thyssen is the third point of Madrid’s art triangle, on Paseo del Prado 8 between the Prado and the Reina Sofía. The nearest metro is Banco de España on Line 2, a two-minute walk. General admission is €14 (about £12), dropping to €10 for over-65s and students, and unlike the Prado it almost never sells out — you can usually buy at the desk or online the evening before. Only the ground-floor temporary exhibitions have capacity limits worth pre-booking.

The smart move is to start at the top and walk down. The collection is hung chronologically across three floors, so beginning on the second floor with medieval and Renaissance panels and descending through Impressionism to twentieth-century Pop Art means you read European painting as one continuous timeline rather than doubling back through rooms. It’s a genuinely different experience from the Prado’s dense Spanish Old Masters: lighter, broader, and far less exhausting.

Worth it after the Prado?

If your budget is tight, time the visit for the free Monday window, 12:00–16:00 (permanent collection only — you can’t book it online, so join the ticket-desk queue). There’s also a free Saturday-night slot, 21:00–23:00, but read the small print: it only opens the temporary exhibitions on the ground and lower floors, not the permanent collection upstairs, so it’s a bonus rather than a substitute for a proper visit. Outside those windows the museum runs Tuesday to Friday and Sunday, 10:00–19:00, with Saturdays open right through to 23:00. Allow an hour and a half to two hours for the permanent collection, plus 45 minutes or so if a temporary show tempts you.

Do the Thyssen even if you’ve already done the Prado — it fills exactly the gaps the Prado leaves, from Dutch primitives to Hopper and the Expressionists, and it’s the calmer, more manageable of Madrid’s big galleries. What to skip: don’t try to stack all three Golden Triangle museums into one day. Pair the Thyssen with a wander through the Retiro or a coffee on Paseo del Prado, and save the Prado for a separate morning.