Rob Hard looks forward to meetings in Madrid. It’s not because of the city’s avenues of art galleries and tapas bars, its blend of high technology and Renaissance architecture, or even the fact that it enjoys warm, sunny weather for most of the year. It’s because the Spanish capital makes it so easy to incorporate those elements into the perfect meeting.

“Every city has its museums, and Madrid has some of the best. But it’s what you do with that museum as part of your meeting experience that matters,” said Hard, president of RH Communications, Inc., a Chicago marketing and event management firm. “If you have even an inkling of an idea that you’d like to host an event in one of these special places, contact them. Most are very flexible about hosting events on their property.”

What Hard loves about Madrid — and what draws 700,000 attendees to the 4,000 conventions and meetings hosted by Spain’s capital each year — is its marriage of modern convenience and sophisticated service with an artistic and aesthetic heritage available nowhere else in the world. The city is famous for combining the old and the new in creative ways. Its latest gastronomic trend, for example — “author cuisine” — approaches traditional recipes from an avant-garde perspective, adding new flavors, raw materials and an elegant presentation.

The same is true of the city’s newest venue, the $96 million CaixaForum Madrid, which opened in February. Designers Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron transformed an 1899 cast-iron and brick power station into a seven-story, 100,000-square-foot venue for conferences, art exhibitions, concerts and other events. While “la Caixa,” Spain’s largest corporate foundation, retained the power plant’s historic charm, its designers added unique touches, including a vertical garden of more than 15,000 plants and three huge pillars that allow the bulk of the building’s structure to float over a new, 27,000-square-foot public forum.

Madrid’s “best of all worlds” approach has made the city a leading contender for the 2016 Olympic Games. While the Olympic Committee won’t announce its decision until October, it has ranked Madrid first in seven of 11 categories, including general infrastructure, environment, transportation infrastructure, experience and “overall project and legacy.” In the meantime, the city is converting one of its most historic sports venues, the former Real Madrid Sports City, into the International Convention Centre. When it opens in 2011, the new center will be Spain’s largest, accommodating up to 3,500 people in a 15-acre urban park that will include the city’s four tallest skyscrapers. At the heart of the campus, the new Madrid Convention Centre will provide six stories and five underground levels of meeting and convention space in an environmentally friendly building lit by solar panels and cooled by collected rainwater.

While the city has been the capital of Spain since 1516 (when King Philip II moved his court here from Seville), an ambitious new project places it at the heart of the country. By 2010, the Spanish government hopes to complete 4,350 miles of high-speed track for its Alta Velocidad Española train system, putting every provincial capital within four hours of Madrid. Recent improvements to the AVE have already cut transit time from Madrid to Segovia from two hours to half an hour, and from Madrid to Malaga from four hours to two and a half. The completed system — begun as part of the 1992 World’s Fair and now considered a model for a proposed high-speed rail network in the United States — will allow trains to travel at 199 mph, sometimes reaching speeds of 219 mph.

“As high-speed train options increase, it’s possible to go from one city ce nter location in Spain to another within a relatively short time,” said RH Communications’ Rob Hard. “The difference to me is that I don’t have to plan for the extra security line time required at airports. Plus, the AVE has different classes of seats, so it’s a very pleasant experience.”

While the AVE and the city’s 298-mile metro system make it easy to get around, meeting planners should charter coaches to bring guests from the large convention centers near Madrid-Barajas International Airport (MAD) to the heart of the city, because visitors haven’t really seen Madrid until they’ve taken the Art Walk — the stroll through the city center that connects the most notable of Madrid’s more than 80 museums and 2,000 monuments. These include the Museo del Prado, the crown jewel of Spanish (and, some would argue, the world’s) art museums, which completed a $208 million expansion in 2007 and includes the 17th-century cloister of the Monastery of San Jerónimo el Real, completely dismantled and rebuilt inside its walls. The “Golden Triangle” of art museums also includes the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, formerly the second-largest private collection of art in the world, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, an 18th-century hospital that now houses some of the greatest works of 20th-century Spanish art, including Picasso’s Guernica and Dali’s Cubist Self Portrait.

It would be just as wrong to leave Madrid without taking the time to savor some of the city’s 3,000 restaurants. Madrid takes its dining seriously, something business travelers would do well to remember. The city is known as the home of cocido madrilène — a simple, hearty stew made from vegetables, potatoes, chickpeas and meat — and as the place where tapas became an art form.

“In Madrid you can find food from every region of Spain — Galicia, Navarra, Andalucía.” said Denver attorney Patrick Hustead, a frequent visitor to the city. “Madrid is the home of the tapas crawl, which is harder to find in Barcelona. Madrid also has incredible art galleries, some of the best in the world, and a much livelier nightlife.

“I travel to Spain about four times per year,” Hustead said. “I always go to Madrid.”

Convention

Centers Ifem a-Feria de Madrid
More Americans come to Madrid than any other nationality: 1.2 million in 2007. Many of those who come on business arrive at Ifema- Feria de Madrid, one of Europe’s largest and most popular trade fair and exhibition grounds. Ifema hosted 83 shows and welcomed 4.3 million visitors in 2008. Its 215,279-square-foot campus includes 12 display pavilions, an office building with a meeting area, a 600-seat auditorium and a 107,639-square-foot convention center. Feria de Madrid, tel 34 90 222 15 15, www.ifema.es

Municipal Conference Centre
Located next to Ifema, Madrid’s Municipal Conference Centre provides guests with two auditoriums, a 23,680-square-foot multipurpose room, 30 rooms with varied seating capacities and a staff with years of experience in organizing presentations and events. Managed by Madrid Espacios y Congresos, the 322,917-square-foot center is the annual host of Madrid Fusion, the Human Capital Fair and ExpoManagement. Avenida de la Capital de España Madrid, tel 34 91 722 04 00, www.madridespaciosycongresos.com

Telefónic a Arena Madrid
The same organization transformed the former Rockodromo in 2005 into the Telefónica Arena Madrid, adding retractable stalls that allow vendors to adjust the size of the building’s main court from 10,441 to 24,972 square feet. The 68,889-square-foot structure includes the prism-shaped Auxiliary Arena, which seats 2,040 people, and the Pabellon de Cristal, or Glass Arena. Recinto Ferial Casa de Campo, Calle de las Aves, tel 34 91 588 93 93, www.madridespaciosycongresos.com

Casa de Campo Convention Centre
Thanks to its location five minutes from the Plaza de España, the Casa de Campo Convention Centre allows planners both easy access to central Madrid and up to 322,917 square feet of covered space, with halls and rooms ranging from 1,076 to 26,910 square feet. The center also provides 430,556 square feet of open-air space. Calle de las Aves, tel 34 91 588 93 93, www.madridespaciosycongresos.com/recinto

Palacio de Congresos de Madrid
Another downtown convention center, the Palacio de Congresos de Madrid, is ideally suited to smaller groups or conventions of up to 2,000 people, with meeting rooms, auditoriums and exhibition halls of up to 13,223 square feet. 99 Paseo de la Castellana, tel 34 91 337 81 00, www.pcm.tourspain.es

Meeting hotels

Hotel Ritz Madrid
When King Alfonso XII wanted a luxury hotel to accommodate the guests for his wedding, César Ritz built the Hotel Ritz Madrid in 1910. The 167-room hotel still serves tea every afternoon and provides five elegant salones for meetings and events, with capacities from 50 to 600 guests. 5 Plaza de la Lealtad, tel 34 91 701 67 67, www.ritzmadrid.com

Eurostars Madrid Tower
At the other end of the spectrum is the state-of-the-art Eurostars Madrid Tower, a 480-room hotel that opened in January and includes 22 meeting rooms, each with the latest in technology, on each of its four floors. 261 Paseo de la Castellana, tel 34 91 334 27 00, www.eurostarsmadridtower.com

Meliá Castilla Hotel
The 915-room Meliá Castilla Hotel is a downtown convention center in its own right, with 43,056 square feet of meeting space in 23 rooms with capacities ranging from 10 to 700 people. 43 Calle del Capitán Haya, tel 34 91 567 50 00, www.meliacastilla.com

Elipsos Trenhotel
Those traveling overnight from Paris might consider the Elipsos Trenhotel, a “hotel on rails.” Gran Class service includes a gourmet dinner and breakfast, private room and early morning arrival in Madrid’s city center. tel 34 91735 42 12, www.elipsos.com