"Wudder ice..." good one, SFY. You know Philly, don't you?!

Eddie, will you be joining the millions on the Parkway yourself? I will have just landed in Madrid and will be taking the advice of Andres and living much of the vacation life por la noche, as I do each time I am there.

Thank you everyone, so much for your responses!

What was I thinking booking my Madrid-trip in july Well I will try to make the best of it.. so my program in the hottest hours will be spending time shopping (places with air-condition), museums and enyoing ice cream in the parks..

What about a day trip (Toledo, El Escorial, Valley of the Fallen, Segovia etc.) Some of these places, that are cooler?

Is there any public pools in the city? I've read that there should be some in casa de campo?

Best regards

There are a lot of public pools in Madrid, and they are not really expensive. I've never been to the pools at Casa de Campo, when I was a kid I used to go to "Parque Sindical", which is pretty close to Moncloa Palace. You can look for public pools in your area in Madrid's town council web page, which is www.munimadrid.es.

And please, stay away of the heat in the early afternoon (remember that early afternoon for us is from 3pm to 6pm). Have you noticed that if you go for a walk at Gran Vía at 4pm you will find no spaniards at all?

One funny thing about being in Madrid during the summer is that even in the middle of a heat wave,the water in the shower still comes out ice cold.Does the water come from the nearby Guadarrama mountains where the snow is still melting?

My aunt has a wonderful story about almost fainting in Toledo when visiting one summer. She said it was crowded and the sun was high in the sky most of the day. With the narrow streets there was nowhere to hide in the shade.

I think she may have been being a little overly dramatic, but I have heard Toledo can get quite toasty in the summer. You may want to save that day trip for another time of year.

I just checked the weather and it looks like Segovia may be a little cooler, so that might be a good bet for a day trip.

Good luck! Next time go in January like I did

Still jealous of all of you in Spain, even if you are being baked.

Today might be the coolest day in the last several days, probably due in part of the rain last night. Today in Madrid it´s supposed to be about 81ºF/27ºC and lows of 61ºF/16ºC. Tomorrow/Wednesday, a high of only 80ºF and even cooler lows. Wow. That´s great. FINALLY! Finally? And on my last days in Madrid! Hmph!

Saludos, MadridMan

I've been to Spain a couple of times in summer, and I found Segovia was quite a nice, cool place - maybe worth a visit (well, it is definitely worth a visit anyway! :-))

Ahh the heat...I miss everything else about Madrid except the oven-like quality of the city in the summer

There's a great public pool in Casa de Campo @ Metro: Lago. Exit the metro and follow up to your right. It's 4 euro for the big, Olympic-sized outdoor pool and there's lots of grass and pool deck spaces to stretch out under a shady tree when you don't want to be in the water. Perfect way to spend a July day in Madrid...

I posted this on another similar topic, but I always go to the Madrid 86 pool, which is like a 2 minute walk from the Sainz de Beranda metro stop (line 9). They have an Olympic pool indoors and outdoors, and they also have a small shallow pool and waterslide (not too big, but nice). The little pool is up on the hill and not very easy to find (I didn't "discover" it until like my 4th time to the pool). If you don't know this area very well, it is very close to the TVE spaceship-looking tower:) Anyway, good luck in your search! A

From El País today:

Now THAT'S HOT!

Saludos, MadridMan