Nearly every ghost in Madrid has a street address, and nearly every one of those addresses can be seen from the pavement, for free, at eleven at night. You don't need a guide with a lantern to stand in front of a façade. What you do need is to know what actually happened there, because this city has legends that were born the day before yesterday and crimes that sit in the archives with a name, a date and a sentence.
This is our Madrid ghost walk, self-guided: the haunted places grouped by neighbourhood, a short card for each story (what the record says, what you see from the street today and which game covers it), how to chain two in the same night, and a final table to separate legend from document. No cardboard jump scares.
What a Madrid ghost tour costs (and how to do it for free)
Guided ghost and legend tours in Madrid are a healthy business, and plenty of them are well told. Two reference prices, taken from the organisers' own websites and checked in September 2026:
- Madrid Misterioso, by Rutas Misteriosas: €14 per person, about two hours, meeting on Calle de la Montera. It covers the Palacio de Linares, the Banco de España and the House of the Seven Chimneys, and includes "live psychophony and experimentation". Not recommended for under-12s.
- La Noche de los Espíritus: from €15 per person, 90 minutes, a theatrical walk from Conde Duque to the Palacio de Linares. Adults only (18+).
There are also tip-based ghost free tours, where you pay what you think it was worth at the end, but you have to book a spot and turn up at their start time.
What we propose doesn't replace a good live storyteller, and it isn't trying to. It's a different thing: DiscoverTheCity routes are free, need no booking and no app download (they run in your phone's browser), and you play them at your own pace. Start when you like, stop for dinner when you like and, if a façade grabs you, stare at it for ten minutes with nobody hurrying you along.
Haunted places in Madrid, neighbourhood by neighbourhood
Each card has three parts: what the sources say, what you see from the street today, and the game that covers it. Some games are live and some are on their way; we name the latter, but you can't play them yet.
Paseo del Prado: the axis of those who never left
Palacio de Linares (Plaza de Cibeles). The legend of Raimundita, the little girl walled up inside, is Madrid's most famous ghost story and also its most recent: she appears on no document before the night of 31 May 1990, when a group went into the closed palace with tape recorders. That same year, Torcuato Luca de Tena took the story apart in the newspaper ABC.
- Today: the palace's floodlit façade. Since 1992 it has been the Casa de América.
National Museum of Anthropology (Alfonso XII, 68). No legend to debunk here: Dr Pedro González de Velasco embalmed his daughter Concha, who died in 1864 aged fifteen, and his own embalmed body stayed inside his museum from 1882 until 1943. The full story is in Dr. Velasco and His Embalmed Daughter: The True Story.
- Today: Francisco de Cubas's building, two minutes from Atocha, which most people walk past without looking.
The game: between those two points lie nine "presences", a lift at the Reina Sofía included, and Those Who Never Left: Paseo del Prado by Night visits all of them. Nine stops from Cibeles to Atocha, about a hundred minutes, downhill and after dark. The making-of, with the "birth date" of each ghost, is in The Ghosts of the Paseo del Prado Have a Birth Date.
Chueca: the House of the Seven Chimneys
Plaza del Rey. The story of Elena, the woman in white who walks between the chimneys, is Madrid's most classic ghost legend. The record says something else: the house dates from the last quarter of the 16th century, it was ransacked during the Esquilache riots of 1766 and, during late-19th-century works for the Banco de Castilla, a woman's skeleton turned up with coins from the reign of Philip II. In 1960 a second one appeared, a man's, which the legend tends to forget. And the legend's own dates don't add up: we explain it in House of the Seven Chimneys: the true story of its ghost.
- Today: the house is home to the Ministry of Culture. From the Plaza del Rey you can count the seven chimneys easily, and at night the roofline stands out against the sky, exactly where the legend puts the woman in white.
- The game: The Ghost of the House of the Seven Chimneys is coming soon.
The Austrias: San Ginés and Plaza Mayor
No official ghosts here, but two documented deaths that feed every legend tour in the quarter.
Calle Mayor, by San Ginés. On the night of 21 August 1622, Juan de Tassis, Count of Villamediana, poet and author of satires against half the government, was killed in his carriage. The killers were never found. The scene, stop by stop, is in Madrid at Night: A Blue-Hour Walk Through the Austrias.
- Today: the tower of San Ginés and the passage of the chocolatería, a couple of hundred steps from the Plaza Mayor.
Plaza Mayor. On 21 October 1621, Rodrigo Calderón, once the right-hand man of the Duke of Lerma, was beheaded here. He met the scaffold with such composure that he left Spanish a saying, "prouder than Don Rodrigo on the gallows", even though he didn't die on the gallows: as a nobleman, he was entitled to the sword.
- Today: the arcaded square, with far more light than it had back then.
The games: The Death of the Count: Madrid, 1622 and Shadows in Habsburg Madrid are coming soon. What you can already play in the quarter is The Alchemist of the Austrias: a 90-minute mystery about an alchemist hunted by the Inquisition in 1578. It isn't a ghost story and it's fiction, but it has the dark tone you're after.
Lavapiés: Calle de la Cabeza
Between Jesús y María and Ave María. Madrid's neatest legend. Under Philip III, a servant cuts his master's throat, a wealthy priest, robs him and flees to Portugal. Years later he comes back, buys a sheep's head at the Rastro, and a constable stops him because he's leaving a trail of blood. When he opens the parcel, out comes the priest's head. The servant confesses and is executed in the Plaza Mayor. The history is smaller and stranger: the street's name appears on old maps and, according to Spanish Wikipedia, number 16 housed an ecclesiastical prison from the late 18th century, the Cárcel de la Corona, where on 4 May 1821 Matías Vinuesa, a priest accused of plotting against the liberal government, was beaten to death with a hammer.
- Today: a short, narrow street in Lavapiés. No stone head: if it ever existed, it's long gone.
- The game: The Vampire of Lavapiés is coming soon. Fair warning: it's fiction, a mystery set in 1884, not a neighbourhood legend.
Malasaña: Antonio Grilo, the street that isn't a legend
Calle de Antonio Grilo, 3. This is Madrid's "cursed house" and, unlike almost everything on this list, what happened here is in the newspapers, not in folklore: according to the press, nine violent deaths in nineteen years, the worst in 1962, when a tailor killed his family on the third floor and then took his own life. The story loosely inspired the film Malasaña 32 (2020).
- Today: a residential building whose neighbours have put up with the curious for years. If you go, keep walking: look from the pavement, ring no bells and photograph nobody.
- The game: Mystery in Malasaña: Echoes of Blood, six dark stories of the neighbourhood, is coming soon.
How to chain two haunted places in one night
Distances are approximate, worked out on the map and allowing for the fact that streets are always longer than a straight line. Treat them as a rough guide, not a stopwatch.
| Combination | Walking distance | How to fit it in |
|---|---|---|
| Seven Chimneys → Palacio de Linares | About 500 m, under 10 minutes | The best of the lot. Plaza del Rey around 20:30, then start the Prado game at Cibeles at 21:00 |
| San Ginés → Plaza Mayor | About 250 m, 3-4 minutes | Practically the same stop. Two deaths, 1621 and 1622, ten months and two hundred metres apart |
| Plaza Mayor → Calle de la Cabeza | About 650 m, about 10 minutes | Down through Tirso de Molina. Pairs well with dinner in Lavapiés |
| San Ginés → Seven Chimneys | About 1.2 km, 15-20 minutes | Via Sol and Calle de Alcalá. Leaves you a step from Cibeles |
| Antonio Grilo → San Ginés | Around 1 km, about 15 minutes | Downhill from Malasaña towards Sol |
| Anthropology Museum → Calle de la Cabeza | About 1.7 km, 20-25 minutes | Only if your legs survive the hundred minutes of the Prado game |
Our pick if you only have one night: the Seven Chimneys, then all of Those Who Never Left. You start in Chueca and finish at Atocha, with metro and trains at the door.
Legend versus record: what is actually proven
It's the rule we follow in all our games: say clearly what is on record and what is only told. Here it is in short.
| Place | What is told | What is on record |
|---|---|---|
| Palacio de Linares | A walled-up girl singing through the halls | No document of any such daughter. The legend is born in 1990 and is debunked in ABC that same year |
| Anthropology Museum | Carriage rides through the Retiro with the dead daughter | The embalmed daughter at home and the doctor's body in his museum until 1943 |
| Seven Chimneys | Elena, Philip II's lover, on the roof with a torch | The 16th-century house, the 1766 ransacking and two skeletons found during works (late 19th century and 1960), never identified |
| San Ginés | A murder ordered by the king | The killing of the Count of Villamediana in 1622, with no known culprit |
| Plaza Mayor | Don Rodrigo's pride "on the gallows" | Rodrigo Calderón, beheaded here in 1621 |
| Calle de la Cabeza | The sheep's head that turns into the priest's | The old street name and the ecclesiastical prison where Vinuesa was killed in 1821 |
| Antonio Grilo, 3 | The cursed house | Real crimes reported in the press, the worst in 1962 |
Notice that the best-documented stories are the ones with the fewest ghosts. That's our favourite part of making these routes.
Madrid ghost walk FAQ
Is it scary? It isn't a haunted house: nobody jumps out of a doorway to scream at you. What unsettles is something else, looking at an ordinary façade and knowing the file is real. If you want frights, it's too tame; if you like history with a shadow on it, it's about right.
Is it suitable for children? It depends on the story. The Antonio Grilo crimes are not for children, and the Prado game talks about corpses and embalming: we recommend it from twelve or thirteen, with an adult. The Seven Chimneys or Calle de la Cabeza, told as legends, work with younger kids.
What's the best time? Full dark, with the façades lit and the buildings closed. In autumn it's thoroughly dark by 21:00. The Prado game is designed to start between 21:00 and 22:00.
Is it really free? Yes. DiscoverTheCity games cost nothing, and there's no booking and no app to download: they open in your phone's browser and you play at your own pace. All you need is battery.
Do I have to go inside any building? No. Everything on this route is visible from the street, and at that hour almost everything is closed, which is part of the point.
Start with the Prado
Of all the haunted places on this list, the Paseo del Prado is the only one you can walk end to end with a live game today, in English or Spanish. Those Who Never Left: Paseo del Prado by Night is nine stops, about a hundred minutes and zero euros. It starts at nine, at Cibeles, and if you have ten minutes to spare beforehand, swing by the Seven Chimneys: they're just round the corner.
Cover photo: Plaza de la Villa at night, by Matthew Verso (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY 2.0.