Sights and interesting spots in Retiro Park

Hi everyone!

I have to say that I don't consider myself an expert on Madrid nor on places there, but it is true that, when you go about living your whole life living in the same city, you know more things than a person who goes from abroad. More than that, you know it in a different way, although a lot of time people who come from a place are guilty of being ignorant and we know more about other places than we do about our home soil.

The Retiro Park in Madrid is one of the best places to go for a walk, as well as being the biggest and most important park in Madrid.

I don't think I need to explain to you what the Retiro park is, nor where to find it. Here, I am going to talk to you about some of the most important areas and things in this park and tell you the history and the interesting things that I know about these places.

Retiro lake

Yes, I will start off with the most well-known feature of all, the lake. It is a square lake, with a monument (which I will talk about later) and with some columns behind. In the lake there are some little boats which there are always people in. To get on the boats, you have to do it from a port which is at the left. I don't remember the price too well, it was between 6 and 8 euros per boat and the time is between 30 and 45 minutes. They have space for up to 4 people so if you go in a group it will work out very cheap (even though there are almost always couples there). You cannot go to Madrid or live there and not go on the little Retiro boats, it is the most typical thing.

If, on the other hand, you don't fancy rowing or there are more of you, at certain times there is usually another bigger boat which you can take a trip on. I think that it only costs 2 euros, but the experience is nowhere near as fun as the previous option, this one is a lot more boring.

To the side of this entrance for the boats, at the left, there is also a room which is used for exhibitions. It is a completely see-through room. I have only been in once and there was a quite interesting graffiti exhibition, I liked it. However, this was quite a while ago and I don't know what is there now. The best thing is to go there or look on the internet to see if there is something being shown there, or if it is closed.

The water in the lake is very dirty, green and is almost always full of carp and ducks. As an interesting fact, I don't know if they change the water every so long, but, a few years ago, they did it to reinforce the structure of the lake, since they said that there could be leaks. This was in 2001 and it was even in the news due to the amount of objects that were found inside. The most common things that were found were mobile phones (which doesn't surprise me at all), but some other things that were said to be found surprised me: shopping trolleys, safes and they even said that they found a funeral urn. I will leave you the link for one of the news reports that came out which you can read, it is very interesting and quite strange (what makes you want to throw your ashes in the Retiro lake?).

Alfonso XII viewpoint

As I have already told you and you will know, behind the lake there is a monument of Alfonso XII on a horse. What few people know is that this is a viewpoint and there is a way to go up it.

Even though it had been closed for many years, recently the Estate has organised completely free guided visits. To access it, you have to get tickets from the website. The page isn't always available, it is only open a couple of times a year so that people can get tickets. They are completely free visits and they are not just to this viewpoint, but the Paseo de Prado or the Capricho bunker. It may seem like in Madrid we are very boring or that we don't get bored of doing things, but each time the tickets are available, the page crashes and they are sold out in just a few minutes. It is almost impossible to find these tickets (but you can, I promise you) since they are small groups of around 20 people and they are only for certain days of the week, normally Saturdays and/or Sundays. It took me a couple of months to be able to get one, since recently they opened a new release of days in which you can visit it.

Once I have climbed to the top, I will tell you what it is like. However, it was recently in the news and it is a small room which you have to go up to on foot up some stairs and from there, there is a 360-degree view of the whole park. I will tell you if it is worth it, although for the price I would say that it is.

Crystal Palace

I think that after the lake, this is the most well-known feature of the park. It is a building made almost entirely out of crystal. At its time, in the 80s, it was built for an international exposition and it homed a greenhouse, even though I think that it never ended up fulfilling its function. Right now, they only use it for temporary exposition, normally contemporary art, since the building currently belongs to the Reina Sofia Museum of Art.

In some of these, they have hung huge glass sculptures throughout the interior, so that it tied in with the rest of the building. They also once placed models of animals and a huge arc or also put up sculptures of body parts. Some of them are interesting and pretty, but others are very odd.

Beyond that, whether there is an exhibition there or not, the building is worth visiting. The glass and the metal together create a very pretty architecture, that looks very good amongst the trees of the park. It is very normal to come across professional or non-professional photoshoots going on inside, since, even though the outside is beautiful (it is covered with tiles), the inside is what is really worth visiting.

Outside, apart from the front, there is also a small lake with a fountain in the middle. Right at the palace door, there are some stairs which you can sit on at the riverbank. Normally it is full of tortoises or ducks which go up to tourists looking for food. At the side, there is also a small cave which gives way to a waterfall and a beautiful view of the palace and the lake together.

Velazquez Palace

If you go walking from the Crystal Palace, very close by is the Velazquez Palace. This building also has a very pretty outside and that, in this case, stands out even more than its inside.

The front is an enormous building, full of colourful tiles and bricks, it is quite unique. It is one of the few buildings which exist in the park. It has a large glass dome which lets the light inside.

The inside isn't always open, and the same as for the previous palace, it belongs to the Reina Sofia Museum so it often has contemporary art exhibitions. Recently, I told you about what is being shown right now and that will be there until September. However, usually, there are no expositions and the building is closed, so the most difficult thing, in reality, is to come across it when it is open.

Rosaleda

A bit further away and to the opposite direction to the Velazquez Palace, is a rose garden. It also has specific opening times and it closes quite early. It is a circular area which is fenced in. Inside, as you can imagine, there are all differently-coloured roses. The best thing to do is to go there in spring or summer. The rest of the year it isn't worth going because the rose bushes haven't flowered and it is quite dry and desolate.

In the centre, there is a fountain and benches to sit on, it is a really nice place to go for a walk.

However, if you know the rose garden which is in the Parque del Oeste, which is a lot bigger and prettier, it isn't worth seeing this one. You won't come across anything new, the other one is a lot better.

Forest of remembrance

This is one of the areas which people usually don't know about. It is in an area of the park which isn't as well known and therefore isn't as visited. Also, the history behind the area isn't as well known, so not as many people go there.

It is a park which was created to commemorate the victims of 11M (Madrid train bombings in 2004). If you are from Spain, you will most definitely know about this attack, although if you are from abroad you will potentially not know about it. The 11M had been one of the biggest attacks in history, second only to the 11:11 attacks on the twin towers. In this attack in 2004, 191 people died. The attack was from different bombs which were put on trains nearby to Madrid in the morning, at the time when people head to work, so the trains were full and a lot of people died.

So, the forest emerged a year later to commemorate this event. It is a very small wood, which goes up a vertical path in a circle. Around the path they have planted 191 trees, cypresses and olive trees. And each one of those is to commemorate one of the people who died in this attack. It is interesting that one of the victims was a woman who was pregnant, practically at the point of giving birth; so two victims were counted and the baby was given its own tree.

When you know the history, the woods lays deep on you. I visited it doing some class-work about the attack, a bit after its anniversary, so it was full of flowers and cards - it was a little overwhelming.

Casa de fieras

This is a very well-known place, but not everyone knows the story which lies behind it nor tries to see it. It is very close to the Ibiza metro where they celebrate the book fair, which I shall talk about now.

What people will know, however, is that there is a library inside of the park. It is a very famous public library to study at. The building, on one of the side, has some kinds of glass domes which protrude from the rest of the building. What not many people know that is a few years ago, there was a zoo right there. But it wasn't just any zoo, but a house of beasts, so of dangerous animals such as lions, tigres and elephants. These glass domes which stick out were the cages for some of the animals.

Also, if you keep walking along there, you will see a huge pit where the tiger was kept and where people gathered to see it. If you are attentive, on the walls the animals that were there are drawn on the walls.

It is really strange that right in the centre of Madrid, not that long ago, there were wild animals like elephants, but there were. It is very interesting to see, like if they were the ruins of an old abandoned zoo.

Book fair

To finish off, I am going to tell you about one of the great activities that take place here, or at least the most well-known one.

Almost in the summertime, between the end of May and the start of June, the book fair takes place in Madrid. In one of the main streets of the Retiro, very close by to the casa de fieras, there is an enormous line of hundreds of book stalls, from which during these days they sell millions of books. Also, every day there are book signings, meetings with the authors and concerts. There are so many activities and it is definitely worth going to. I always go to one book signing, there will usually be quite a long queue (I go to very-well known author's signings) but it is worth it. They usually sign for more than one day, so you can go a different time if you see that you will not have time.

The best thing is to look up the activities that are going to take place, the hours of the signings and the number of the stands. There are hundreds of stalls split into two lines and lots of people. It is the time when most people are in the Retiro and it is impossible to walk along the street. The best thing is knowing beforehand where you want to go and when, so that you don't waste time. Saying that, for me the best thing is just walking along and finding books to buy.

With this, I have now finished off talking about the places in the Retiro park, I am sure that I have probably missed one out. However, talking about these things is, in my opinion, enough so that you can visit the park in a unique way, knowing a bit of the history and knowing a little bit about the things that you are seeing. I hope that this has been at least a little interesting for you to read.

I will see you very soon.

Thanks for reading!

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