This is likely one of the better books out there for touring Madrid on your own. It gives good descriptions of virtually all the hi-lites for central Madrid and immediate environs.
I was in Madrid for seven days and built most of my trip around the recommendations in this book. Specifically, I made sure I did the "Best of Madrid in 1,2 and 3 days" as the main framework of my city touring. The maps give a good orientation and sense of location of the attractions. The lack of detail of the maps was a handicap. Often an address is given for a particular feature but Madrid streets are a maze. Asking for directions from the locals is exasperating if you do not speak Spanish. A map from another travel guide was necessary, although even with it I could not find many of the smaller attractions e.g; small museums, restaurants.
The three day-long walking tours (not to be confused with the shorter two-hour walking tours in Chapter 8) will usually take more time than the guide allows. The Prado is a whole day by itself! Many of the smaller attractions, if you could find them on the walk, were closed when I reached them (I was either too early or too late). The guide could have mentioned the hours of operation for many of the sites. Another problem is that the starting point of each tour was often remote from my centrally-located hotel.
I ended up redesigning the walking tours, starting from my hotel and combining the shorter tours with the day-long ones. For instance, Walking tour # 1 on p. 202 has to be done on a Sunday (that's El Rastro day) and you should start at El Rastro. It takes a long time to tour.
The maps did not give a good sense of the locations of the Metro stations, with its dots often well away from the station. These should be drawn as open circles (not diamonds) around the areas where all the station entrances and exits are located. The lack of a map of Casa de Campo makes it a little difficult to go there and explore it. I got lost for a while.
The descriptions of the attractions were accurate and gave a good sense of what to expect. This guide has no pictures (except the cover). I find photos usually give a better sense of what to expect.
I complemented this guide with Fodor's Madrid: Top 25. It had better maps....and has pictures. It also gave more specific information about hours of operation and means of reaching attractions.
The recommendations for high-end hotels are spot-on. If you want to live in luxury, you will do well with any one of the "very expensive" and "expensive" (five-star) recommendations in the guide. But for anything four-star or less, I would recommend researching a travel web site instead.
Although it describes how to do one-day side-trips by oneself, I suggest just paying for a local bus tour and putting yourself in the hands of a professional guide. I would have gotten lost in Toledo trying to follow this guide and a bus is absolutely necessary to see as much as possible in one day.
This guide is not stand-alone; as a I mentioned I had to supplement it with Fodor's Madrid: Top 25. But it covers Madrid very well; I could not do everything it recommended in a week. I did not avail myself to the nightlife section but I am sure it would have kept me busy enough by itself, partying until 6 am every night as Spaniards do!
