Why go

The Reina Sofía is where most visitors come face to face with Guernica, Picasso’s huge black, white and grey painting of the bombing of the Basque town in 1937. Seeing it in person, at full scale, is one of the defining experiences of a trip to Madrid. Around it, the museum tells the story of 20th-century Spanish art, with rooms of Dalí, Miró, Juan Gris and the artists of the Spanish avant-garde.

The building is part of the experience too. The collection fills a former 18th-century hospital, the Sabatini Building, with glass lifts on the outside, joined to a red-roofed modern extension by the architect Jean Nouvel. It stands at the southern end of the Paseo del Arte, opposite Atocha station.

What to see

  • Guernica. Picasso’s protest against the bombing of Guernica, shown with his preparatory sketches and photographs of the work in progress.
  • Salvador Dalí. Early and surrealist works, including The Great Masturbator and Face of the Great Paranoiac.
  • Joan Miró. Bright, playful canvases from his long career.
  • Spanish avant-garde. Juan Gris, María Blanchard and others who worked between Madrid and Paris in the early 20th century.
  • The Nouvel Building. Temporary exhibitions, a library and a courtyard under a vast red canopy.
  • The garden. A quiet cloister-like courtyard in the middle of the Sabatini Building, with sculptures.

Plan your visit

The museum opens on Monday and from Wednesday to Saturday from 10am to 9pm, and on Sunday from 10am to 2.30pm. It is closed every Tuesday. It also closes on 1 and 6 January, 1 May and 24, 25 and 31 December.

General admission is €12. Entry is free on Monday and from Wednesday to Saturday between 7pm and 9pm, and on Sunday between 12.30pm and 2.30pm, for individual visitors. You still need a ticket, which you can book online to avoid the queue. There are also free days, including 18 April, 18 May, 12 October and 6 December. A ticket with audio guide costs €18 at the ticket office, as does a ticket giving two visits, which suits a collection this large.

If you buy online, enter through the Nouvel Building on Ronda de Atocha. Suitcases are not allowed. Photography without flash is permitted in most rooms. Galleries are kept at about 21°C, so dress in layers in summer.

Two to three hours is enough for Guernica and the main collection rooms. To see Guernica in relative calm, head straight to the second floor when the doors open, or come in the last hour of a free evening when the crowds thin.

In the Retiro

The museum also runs two exhibition spaces in the Retiro, the Palacio de Velázquez and the Palacio de Cristal, both free. The glass Palacio de Cristal is closed for improvements in late 2026, covered by an art installation until 1 January 2027.

Nearby

The Royal Botanical Garden and the Prado are a ten-minute walk north along the Paseo del Prado, and CaixaForum, with its vertical garden, is on the way. Lavapiés, one of Madrid’s most diverse neighbourhoods, with cheap bars and restaurants from all over the world, starts just behind the museum.