What to Do in Madrid on a Day Without an Atlético Match

Madrid is not short of things to do on a day without football: Retiro Park, the Prado, the bars of La Latina. Narrow it to places tied to Atlético and you are down to two: the stadium tour at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano, and the park built where the Vicente Calderón used to stand.

With only one free day, I would take the tour. It gives you the first-team dressing room, the players' tunnel, the benches at pitch level, the press room and the presidential box, and it works even if you never saw the Calderón. The old ground is a different matter: what you take from it depends a great deal on who you are.

Information checked in August 2026.

The stadium's concrete went into the ground around it

The Calderón came down in July 2020. Figures attributed to the city's works department put the rubble from the final stand at 62,500 tonnes. Concrete waste was crushed on site, recycled, and fed into the urban works already under way in the area. According to the city, demolition material from the old ground was also used as fill when the park was built. No stand or stretch of the outer wall has been kept as a structure. What lies under the park is the part that was broken up and reused.

A park now covers the same ground. The Parque Atlético de Madrid opened on 9 December 2024, the works covered more than 67,000 square metres, and the budget was €12m. A 620-metre walkway joins the northern and southern halves of Madrid Río along the Manzanares.

There are two markers. A stone slab set into the lawn carries the outline of the stadium. Beneath the grass, at what used to be the centre of the pitch, a time capsule was buried.

The list published by the city gives the contents as a piece of turf, a stone from the stadium, a seat, a club flag, a shirt, photographs of the first and last goals, the poster from the opening match, and the sector-by-sector price list from the final game. The club published a slightly different list, so the full contents are not settled.

If the city's version is right, that price list is down there under the grass: a sheet showing what each part of the ground cost. You would expect a trophy or a famous night to be picked for something like this. Seeing a price list on the list surprised me.

Around the lawn runs a three-lane track, though it is not a certified one. A cycle path curves through a stand of pines, there are granite benches, and the river is in view. The walkway is step-free. Mayor Almeida and club president Enrique Cerezo were both at the opening.

What you feel there depends a lot on who you are

Someone who watched football at the Calderón and someone who only knows it from footage will see this place differently. For the first, the slab and the lawn do something. For the second, it will probably amount to a walk through a well-kept park by the river.

Most supporters travelling to see Atlético now fall into the second group. Simeone arrived in 2011, and the first team's last competitive match at the Calderón was on 21 May 2017, a 3-1 win over Athletic Club. Anyone who came to the club in the last few years has no reason to carry the place around with them.

So the old ground comes second on my list. It matters historically, and it shows where the club came from. It is still not the first thing I would recommend to someone in Madrid for the first time with one free day.

With one day, take the stadium tour

The Atleti Tour & Museum walks you through the Metropolitano: the first-team dressing room, the tunnel the players come out of, the benches at pitch level, the press room, the presidential box. The museum alongside it covers the club's history through hands-on displays.

There are a few formats. A self-guided route you take at your own pace, and a guided one. Audio guides are available in Spanish and English. Reckon on about an hour for the museum and about an hour for the stadium, so half a day if you do both.

One thing worth knowing: the route is not identical every time. The club states that the stadium visit can be changed or suspended without notice for sporting or organisational reasons, in which case tickets can be used on another date.

I still put this first because what you get out of it does not depend on your background. Even without the Calderón behind you, standing at pitch level and looking up at an empty stand tells you the size of the thing. As a substitute for the match you could not get a ticket for, it is the closest thing available.

If you want to see what is on sale before you go, marketplace listings cover the self-guided tour and museum entry together: check Atleti Tour listings on Hellotickets (we may earn a commission). There is more on booking at the end of the next section.

There are weeks with no grass on the pitch

What you see changes with the time of year.

The official sales page lists the pitch as being without grass until 8 August, and again from 23 August to early September. Those dates are not fixed, and other periods appear elsewhere on the same site, so check before you buy if you want a photograph of a green pitch. In summer, staging for concerts can also close off parts of the tour.

Opening hours change with the season. The visit page gives 11:00 to 19:00 from 13 October to 29 March, and 11:00 to 20:00 from 30 March to 12 October, though a different split appears within the same guidance, so it is worth a look before you travel. Last entry for the stadium tour is two hours before closing, with match days and event days handled separately. Get that wrong and you can end up seeing the museum and missing the tour.

Visitors with reduced mobility should ring or email in advance to arrange the stadium visit. Showing a disability card at the museum desk brings the admission price down by half.

Booking ahead. The club's own site is the direct route and the one to try first. If you would rather compare formats and cancellation terms in one place, marketplace listings carry the self-guided tour with museum entry — see the Atleti Tour options on Hellotickets. Prices there can differ from the club's.

Booking through this link may earn Cholismo Lab a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Doing the park and the Metropolitano in a day

You can do both in one day. The order changes how much of it you spend travelling.

The Metropolitano is in the north-east of the city, out by the M-40, at Paseo de los Colchoneros 11. The park is in the south-west, in the Arganzuela district, at Paseo de la Virgen del Puerto 67. On the map they sit diagonally across the city from each other. Getting from one to the other means crossing the city from the north-east to the south-west.

The park is public green space, built as part of Madrid Río. The nearest stations are Pirámides and Marqués de Vadillo on Metro line 5, with Cercanías services at Pirámides as well. Plenty of buses run past.

Fix the tour first, since that is the one with opening hours and a last entry, then put the park before or after it. Tour in the morning and park in the afternoon leaves room for a meal in the centre in between. The other way round means crossing the city to the north-east against the clock.

The matchday version of this is written up in How to Spend an Atlético Matchday in Madrid, running from Retiro Park to the Prado, the Neptune fountain and tapas in La Latina, timed backwards from kick-off. On the man who gave the old ground its name, there is Vicente Calderón — The Man Whose Name Disappeared with the Stadium.