Metro: Beware of Broken Elevators and other Madrid, Spain Warning Or Danger Tips

This tip pertains to all mobility-reduced visitors who think about using the metro to move around in Madrid. Theoretically, the metro is a great means of transport, especially because it gets you to the city centre quite quickly for very little money after you've arrived at Barajas Airport. Things are not so great for wheelchair users though. At first everything looked fine. I had a plan indicating that near my hotel there were a couple of Metro stations with elevators. I had no problem whatsoever boarding the Metro at Barajas Airport, changing lines at Nuevos Ministerios was easy too. What happened then, however, sucked. I got off the train at Plaza De Espana only to find the elevators out of service. The escalators did work but they were very steep and, having no knowledge of the languge, I was unable to instruct other people how to help me up the escalators. I decided to try the next station with lifts, called "Principe Pio". Even though this seems to be a major railway station and changing point, the lifts at this station were also out of service. Bollocks! At the next station, "Lago", the lifts finally worked. But this was already waaaaaay out of town in some kind of sports park. I had no idea where I was and there was no taxi in sight, either. Some helpful local fellow finally took notice of my miserable self and I managed to tell him I wanted to "Gran Via con taxi"... he just shook his head "no taxi aqui" (*that* I had already figured out myself...) and pushed me for about a mile until we reached a large street with taxis travelling on it. The journey from Barajas to the hotel took me 4 hours. -- Twice as long as the flight from Cologne.

To make a long story short -- if you have no one accompanying you that's capable of helping you manage the escalators and if your Spanish is as poor as mine, do not take a chance with the Metro ... take a taxi from the airport. It's about 20 EUR to downtown and it saves you quite some hassle!

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Website: http://www.metromadrid.es