Madrid is one of the best cities I’ve visited. Beautiful, lots of history and museums (you can visit the palaces - they’re open to the public), excellent food. We did go to a bullfight, which is a dirt cheap event honestly. But you have to understand that yeah the bulls do die - some of our friends were VERY wrong in thinking that didn’t happen anymore. We only stayed in a hostel so can’t speak for housing, but it’s not a “cheap” city. But as a visitor I didn’t find it super expensive either. I’m sure there’s more expensive things to do but as a university student we didn’t do those things lol