I have been meaning to go on the cable car in Madrid for a very long time. I finally got around this activity on my 10 things to do in Madrid in 2011 list this month.
I went with my partner to the station located at Rosales on a Saturday around midday.It is close to metro Plaza de España from the direction of Templo de Debod. I thought I would find a long queue according to articles I read online, but fortunately we hardly waited.
The option of paying ahead online to avoid possible queues is available on this official website of Teleférico Madrid. However, my experience was that the online reservations have stricter availability options, and as it was evident in my case, though online was fully booked, we found places available when we presented ourselves physically. The installation and its cable cars are in good shape.
Before entering the cable car, one can choose either French or English to be the narration language on the 20 minute trip either way. We kept the default, Spanish language narration. I am not a bit fan of rides and am afraid of heights, however the cable car´s maximum height of 40m (about 2 miles) above ground and 12 metre per second (about 26 miles per hour) maximum speed is comfortable and enjoyable.
The narration covers the histories for Parque del Oeste, Templo de Debod, Royal Palace, The Warner Brothers Theme Park, The Manzanares River, The Casa de Campo Park and so on. Each car can carry about 6 persons or a combined weight of 450kg (about 992 pounds).
The round trip costs merely 5.35 Euros. We stopped to walk around in Casa de Campo before returning on the cale car. Casa de Campo is ideal for picnics or just hiking. All in all the trip is enjoyable, and a refreshing panoramic view of Madrid.
However,the duration is short and the sights explained are not that many.In their defence,it was nice to note that they made mention of the 4 Madrid Towers in their narration on the return tour.For 5 Euros its an absolute must!
