During Easter, Spain’s national museums — the Prado, Reina Sofia, and Thyssen — posted notable increases in visitor numbers, with several sites reporting rises exceeding 100 percent compared to 2021. The rebound marks a clear step back from the declines seen over the past two years due to pandemic-related restrictions.
At the Prado National Museum, attendance nearly matched its Easter 2021 total, recording 61,048 visitors from April 11 to April 17, 2022, compared with 61,328 visitors in the same period a year earlier. The month’s totals show a strong recovery, though they had not yet surpassed pre-pandemic levels observed in 2019.
The busiest days during the week were Tuesday and Saturday, which drew 10,027 and 10,013 visitors respectively, underscoring sustained interest even as crowd sizes fluctuated. The Prado’s Easter attendance reached the Bicentennial milestone of 76,443 visitors, a figure achieved during the festival year.
In February, the Prado saw a rebound too, with 8,647 visitors at the Villanueva building on a Saturday, a level that matched pre-pandemic records and represented the highest daily turnout since March 2020. December’s long weekend had also produced high daily counts of 8,300 and 8,500, but the spring surge remained a notable sign of growing public engagement.
Reina Sofia Museum, not including the Retiro Palace complex, reported a 151% year-over-year increase in attendance in 2022. Across its three-day span from Thursday to Sunday, April 14–17, the museum welcomed 21,975 visitors. Last year, the same dates saw around 8,749 visitors, reflecting the rapid rebound in cultural interest after peak mobility restrictions.
Europa Press notes that Good Friday was the busiest day of 2022 for the Reina Sofia, with more than 6,500 visits recorded. When accounting for the palace and other affiliated sites, the cumulative attendance across the main venues reached 63,356 visitors in 2022. The Crystal Palace was closed in 2021 due to the effects of the Filomena weather event, which complicates year-to-year comparisons for that site.
As for the Thyssen Museum, data supplied to Europa Press show that 16,680 visitors attended during Holy Week 2022 (Thursday through Sunday, April 14–17). This marks a rise from 11,541 visitors during Holy Week in 2021, illustrating a robust rebound in museum-going activity among art institutions during the holiday period.