Madrid: Gardens and Landscape

This itinerary takes us through a continuous sequence of viewpoints, gardens, and green spaces in Madrid, highlighting how the city relates to its natural areas and offering multiple perspectives from which to contemplate its urban landscape. We begin in Madrid Río Park, a project initiated in 2005 that offers 30 kilometers of bike paths as well as various areas for practicing different sports. One of its most striking landmarks is the monumental Arganzuela Footbridge designed by French architect Dominique Perrault in 2011. Nearby stands the Glass Palace Greenhouse of Arganzuela, located in the former municipal slaughterhouse built by Luis Bellido y González between 1908 and 1928 and transformed into a greenhouse in 1992, following the iron architecture tradition of European cities such as London and Vienna. From here we continue to the Royal Botanical Garden, founded in 1755 by order of Ferdinand VI and serving as a CSIC research center since 1939. Our route then leads us along the Paseo del Prado, a boulevard lined with some of Madrid’s most important cultural institutions, including the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, and CaixaForum Madrid.

The tour can be extended up to eight hours by including more stops at some of Madrid’s most charming scenic and historical green spaces. Among them is the Vistillas Garden, a 1.74-hectare area designed in the 1930s and 1940s by Fernando García Mercadal and Manuel Herrero Palacios, named for its magnificent views over Casa de Campo and the Manzanares River. Behind the Royal Palace lies the Campo del Moro, a garden of more than 20 hectares created during the reign of Philip II and named after the attempted reconquest of Madrid in 1109, when the army of Ali Ben Yusuf camped on these grounds. Nearby is the Temple of Debod, an Egyptian temple dating from the 2nd century BCE and inaugurated in Madrid in 1972 as a gift from Egypt for Spain’s assistance in saving the temples of Nubia. We then reach the Parque del Oeste, almost 100 hectares of parkland commissioned in 1906 by Mayor Alberto Aguilera and designed by agronomist and city gardens director Celedonio Rodrigáñez.