What is the Madrid outdoor escape game?
The Madrid outdoor escape game is an escape room that has moved out onto the pavement: each landmark hides a puzzle, you work on it from your phone, and the answers come from looking rather than from knowing. Set aside about 2 hours, 50 minutes of it walking, covering 3.9 km and 10 stops, on whichever day you choose.
The puzzles sit at the Prado Museum and the Monument to Goya, the baroque Puerta de Felipe IV, the Puerta de Alcalá, the Cibeles Fountain, the domed Metropolis Building, Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, the Church of San Ginés and Plaza de Oriente. No storyline ties them together, so each one is solved on its own, and three levels of hints are there to fall back on. Madrid puts gates, statues, plaques and painted façades within a few streets of each other, which is exactly what a game like this runs on.
- Durationabout 2 hours
- Walkingabout 50 min · 3.9 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch
What you do on the escape game
Solve
Each landmark sets one puzzle, cracked by observation and reasoning. No preparation is needed.
Look closer
The clues sit in inscriptions, bronze figures, lion heads and the detail of the painted walls.
Walk
Google Maps bridges the stops: 50 minutes on foot in total, over roughly 3.9 km.
Take your time
Nothing counts down. Take a hint if a puzzle digs in, break for coffee or chocolate con churros and continue later or another day.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of players. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Play when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who it suits
Friends on a day out
Ten puzzles give the group a reason to stop and look at Madrid instead of walking straight past it.
Couples
A single challenge shared between two, from the Prado to the Royal Palace side of town, at your own pace.
Team building
Teams of up to 5 play on their own phones, which keeps a company outing simple.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- Best started in daylight, so you can see the details the puzzles ask about.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Teams of up to 5 work best; bigger groups split into several teams, one ticket per player.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
Puzzle route: from the Prado Museum to Plaza de Oriente
10 stops · about 50 min walking · start: Prado Museum · finish: Plaza de Oriente
The Prado Museum carries the opening puzzle, with the Monument to Goya standing at its northern side. The baroque Puerta de Felipe IV comes next, on the edge of the Retiro, followed by the Puerta de Alcalá and the Cibeles Fountain. Calle de Alcalá then leads up to the Metropolis Building and on to Puerta del Sol, after which Plaza Mayor, the Church of San Ginés and a last puzzle on Plaza de Oriente round off the route. Daylight makes it easier, since every answer is read off what stands in front of you and rain slows the walking. Google Maps does the navigating, the stop order can be changed in the app, and no puzzle needs an entry ticket.
Open the route map ↗
1Prado MuseumStart
Juan de Villanueva designed this neoclassical building in 1785 for King Charles III as a natural history cabinet. It opened as a royal museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819 and is now one of the world's great art museums, with works by Velázquez, Goya and El Greco. A statue of Velázquez stands in front of its main façade.
2Monument to Goya
This bronze statue of Francisco de Goya by the sculptor Mariano Benlliure stands outside the north side of the Prado, by the entrance named after the painter. Unveiled in 1902, it honours the artist from Aragon whose works, including his late Black Paintings, fill many rooms of the museum behind him.
3Puerta de Felipe IV
Melchor de Bueras built this baroque granite gate in 1680 as a triumphal arch for the arrival of Marie Louise of Orléans, first wife of Charles II. In 1690 it welcomed his second wife, Maria Anna of Neuburg, whose inscription it still bears. Moved from its first site, it now marks an entrance to the Retiro gardens.
4Puerta de Alcalá
King Charles III commissioned this neoclassical gate from Francesco Sabatini, and it was inaugurated in 1778 as a gate in the old city wall on the road to Alcalá de Henares. It has five openings, three arches and two rectangular passages. Today it stands in the middle of the Plaza de la Independencia, beside the Retiro Park.
5Cibeles Fountain
Ventura Rodríguez designed this fountain around 1780: the goddess Cybele, carved by Francisco Gutiérrez, rides a chariot pulled by two lions by Roberto Michel. In mythology the lions are Atalanta and Hippomenes, turned into animals by the gods. Real Madrid fans gather here to celebrate their team's titles.
Read the full story →
6Metropolis Building
This domed building on the corner of Calle de Alcalá and Gran Vía was designed by the French architects Jules and Raymond Février and inaugurated in 1911 for the insurance company La Unión y el Fénix. The winged Victory on its dome has stood there since 1977, replacing the original statue of the Phoenix with Ganymede.
Read the full story →
7Puerta del Sol
In front of the Real Casa de Correos, the 18th-century post office that now houses the regional government, a plaque marks Kilometre Zero of Spain's national roads. On New Year's Eve, Spaniards eat twelve grapes to the chimes of its clock. Nearby stands the Bear and the Strawberry Tree, the symbol of Madrid, unveiled in 1967.
Read the full story →
8Plaza Mayor
Madrid's arcaded main square was completed in 1619 under Philip III by Juan Gómez de Mora and rebuilt by Juan de Villanueva after a fire in 1790. In the centre stands the bronze equestrian statue of Philip III by Giambologna and Pietro Tacca, placed here in 1848. The painted façade of the Casa de la Panadería dates from 1992.
9Church of San Ginés
San Ginés on Calle del Arenal is one of the oldest parishes in Madrid; the present church dates from 1645, while the bell tower survives from an earlier building. Lope de Vega married here and Francisco de Quevedo was baptised here. In the alley behind it, the Chocolatería San Ginés is known for hot chocolate with churros.
10Plaza de OrienteFinish
This square between the Royal Palace and the Teatro Real took its present form in the 1840s. In the centre rides Philip IV in a bronze by Pietro Tacca, sent to Madrid in 1640: the rearing horse rests only on its hind legs, and Galileo Galilei is said to have calculated its balance. Statues of Spanish kings line the gardens.
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Isabelle– Canada –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Belle fa?on de d?couvrir les beaut?s de ville
United States –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Great way to see the city!
Carolina– Germany –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Einerseits lernt man viel ?ber Madrid und die Tour ist gut konzipiert. Andererseits sind manche R?tsel derma?en unverst?ndlich, dass man sie nicht l?sen kann. Man kommt nat?rlich trotzdem weiter aber es ist ?rgerlich.