Hotel in Madrid,1st night in Leon

Hi, Eliza,
You didn't mention what kind of place or what kind of price you are looking for. There are lots of recommendations on this forum, try some of these:

traveling-to-from-the-camino/topic13634.html (Madrid)

Leon: el-camino-frances/topic13485.html
Leon: el-camino-frances/topic12865.html

My own budget favorites are Hostal Bruna in Madrid http://www.ctv.es/hostalbruna/ and Pension Blanca in Leon: http://www.pensionblanca.com/

Let us know if you are looking for more expensive places.

I think you will be able to stay in the Carbajalas albergue in Leon if you are walking the next day. In my experience, they will let you check in as you arrive even if you haven't walked that day, so long as you are starting out the next day. I know there was a recent thread indicating that the Burgos albergue would make people who hadn't walked wait till the end of the day to check in, but I don't think that's the practice in Leon.

The one piece of unsolicited advice I would give you is that you should think about getting up to Leon on your arrival day into Madrid. You'll be zonked anyway, so adding on the train or bus from Madrid won't add much to the pain. Unless you plan to spend a couple of days in Madrid touring, the hassle of getting into Madrid just to sleep may be more than it's worth. There are many good ways to get from the airport directly to either the train or bus station and there are some buses that leave directly from the airport. You could then use the next day to enjoy Leon while getting over jet lag a bit. Leon is a beautiful city and well worth a visit. Just my two cents.

Buen camino, Laurie