The girlfriend and I are probably heading to Madrid in Sept.
Anybody have any recommendations about the city. Will be staying for about 5-7 days and don’t really know much about the city.
Mid-range budget for accommodation. Interested in good restaurants, museums, the usual tourist stuff.
Thanks 
I don’t think we ever sat down for an actual meal in Madrid–the tapas crawling was just too alluring. On that score, looking for a specific place kind of defeats the purpose. Just wander around, go in places that look cool, and eat what looks good. (Madrid is a world-class city for aimless wandering.)
We stayed at Flat 5 Madrid. The rooms are tiny, but was cheap and well-located and the staff was wonderful. It might start to feel cramped after 5-7 days.
The Prado is definitely worth an afternoon, even for someone like me who doesn’t know art very well. Look for the pair of paintings that we referred to as Surly Naked Fat Children.
Here are some of my favorites:
The Prado
The Royal Palace
Basilica de San Francisco el Grande
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (“Guernica” is there)
The Estación train station (contains a rain forest)
Shopping on the Calle de Serrano
Plaza de Espagna
The Egyptian Temple of Debod
And watch out for pickpockets in the airport (I learned this the hard way).
Mercado de San Miguel for lunch one day, definitely. The place looks quite unassuming from the outside but then you go in and it’s a food-lover’s multiorgasmic wet dream. Stall after stall after stall of vendors selling cured ham and sushi and cheeses and bread and little fried balls of…stuff…and caviar by the spoon and fresh fruit and cava and wines and…and… and then in the middle there’s small stand-around tables. You take a tray and wander around filling it up with deliciousness and then grab a table and eat. And then one of you stays behind to guard the table because the place is always pretty packed, and the other one is sent off on a filler mission. We spent almost three hours there last time I was in Madrid.
As added bonuses, they have guards at the doors to watch out for pickpockets and beggars so it’s pretty safe inside, and it also wasn’t very touristy - most of the customers were madrileños out for lunch. (Could have changed now, this was last May and as I understand it the place had reopened after a long renovation only shortly before.)
Seconding the Estación with its forest, we didn’t make it on our last visit but it looked so cool in all the pictures!
Also, El Retiro (Parque del Buen Retiro) is a really nice place to wander around and chill. It’s not called “The Lungs of Madrid” for nothing. Rent a rowboat and go rowing around on the rectangular artificial lake…but watch out for all the couples who rent boats, row out into the middle of the lake and then sit there making out because they can’t go to their places because they still live at home with their parents. Also, watch out for couples making out under trees, in bushes, next to ice cream stands, by the fountains,…