Excellent guide who is a great storyteller with lots of knowledge - and great food recommendations! - Pepe was my family’s guide for the three days that we stayed in Madrid; our family is my wife and I with our three young adult sons. This is a long review but to say up front, we’d recommend Pepe. He established a WhatsApp communication with me and did a call with me when we were planning our trip, taking time ahead of our visit to learn what we were interested in seeing and he was flexible and willing to tailor the tours to meet our interests. This helped us to make the most of our time with him. We did a four hour Madrid walking tour (with a 1 hour stop for lunch) on the first afternoon we arrived in Madrid, a day in Segovia, and a day in Toledo. For the Segovia and Toledo days, Pepe picked us up in a van at our hotel at 10AM, and we returned to our hotel around 5:30PM. Pepe is an excellent guide with outstanding English skills (both his language skills and his ability to explain things with nuance). He’s extremely knowledgeable about Spanish history, and the noteworthy landmarks and attractions in Madrid, Segovia and Toledo. And he conveys that knowledge very well as he’s an excellent story teller who conveys historical events (from ancient times all the way through to Franco’s dictatorship and modern times) in a very accessible and interesting way that is often quite colorful and memorable. We also learned quite a lot about Spanish culture and Spanish cuisine from Pepe. He’s very candid and doesn’t sugar-coat some of the not-so-honorable aspects of Spanish history and we felt we learned a great deal without having to really pay too much attention to specific dates, places, and names (so we didn’t feel like we were in a history class!). We also learned the differences between Roman and Moorish architecture, learned a bit about how the Romans built some of the amazing things they built, and learned some interesting things about how people lived in Spain over the years. A couple of tips…. Pepe is a great storyteller but doesn’t want to “force” things on his clients. So you can have some quiet times when you’re with him, but if you have a question - ask it! He’ll always answer. Pepe is also quite punctual when it comes to pickup times especially when he’s picking you up in a vehicle… so account for that. A few points about the specific tours and places we visited. Madrid’s main attractions (Retiro Park, Reina Sofia, Prado, Royal Palace, Old City around Plaza Mayor, city hall) are walkable but they aren’t particularly close to each other, so there is a lot of walking relative to the number of sights you see, and in our approximately 3 hours of walking we didn’t have an opportunity to walk through Retiro Park (we only walked by the edge of the park) or enter any buildings / attractions. We loved Segovia (the “city of kings”). It’s beautiful, the aqueduct is very impressive and amazingly well preserved, the Alcazar (castle) is striking and worth visiting, and the town was quite quaint and we enjoyed walking through it. We didn’t have time to do any shopping but there were some quite nice shops that we’d have liked to have stopped in if we had more time, or if we’d spent less time in the castle. Toledo is a truly ancient city. Very impressive buildings and amazing to be in a place where many of the buildings have foundations that date back to Roman times. It was also the place from where the Spanish Inquisition was run, so there’s a lot to see and learn on that front. Pepe’s tour of the city was interesting and informative and quite comprehensive in showing the history of Toledo (Roman, Moorish, and Catholic). He also knows (of course) the places with the best views. The one point of feedback here is that is that Pepe’s tour didn’t include a visit inside the Toledo cathedral and he didn’t particularly recommend it, but for us he included us taking some time to visit the cathedral as it was a point of interest for my family. I’d say that it’s a must-see! It’s massive and impressive, with a great deal of history, a truly noteworthy golden altarpiece (the “monstrance”), and quite a lot of noteworthy art especially in the sacristy, which is easy to miss if you’re not aware that it’s there.

Quick evening layover - We had an evening layover in Madrid and wanted to get a quick taste of the city. Pepe met us at the airport, we dropped our bags at our hotel and we did a driving tour of the city. He shared info on key landmarks, stopped for a panoramic view of the city and found us a delicious dinner at a local restaurant. It was a wonderful way to maximize our evening in Madrid and wet our appetite to visit again! Pepe was fantastic.