A place travelers can visit The Buen Retiro Park

Reviews: The Buen Retiro Park

General description: The Buen Retiro Park

Buen Retiro Park
A blue and white spring sky stretches over Madrid. It's time to take a stroll with husband, wife, kids, granny, grandad and the dog through the Retiro.
 
A stroll through the Park - El Retiro
The chestnut trees are already in full leaf and are starting to flower. Workers noisily sweep the paths beneath the mighty trees. A couple in love row across the little artificial lake. On the tarmacked shoreline path, a black saxophonist plays the evergreen "Que será, será, whatever will be, will be". A woman pulls a dry baguette from a plastic bag and stamps it into crumbs for the pigeons. A distinguished looking gentleman has set up a camping table and reads the palm of his first client of the day, who has a serious look on his face. On the other side of the lake, beneath the mighty equestrian statue of Alfonso XII, young people loll in the sun and smoke a joint, without making much attempt to hide it.
 
Art in the Park
The tourists are drawn more to the centre of the park, where they can see contemporary art at the refurbished Palacio de Cristal and the Palacio de Velázquez. To the south is the Fuente del Ángel Caído - probably the world's only monument to Lucifer. At its feet, eight dragon heads symbolically guard Hell, which the fallen angel will never again leave. In the southwest of the park, a "Wood of the Absent" made up of 192 cypresses and olive trees commemorates the victims of the terrorist attacks of 11 March 2004. Philip IV had the Parque del Buen Retiro (Park of Good Retreat) built as a royal garden in the 17th century. It has been open to the public since 1868 and is a green oasis which is transformed into a lively village fair at weekends.

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• El Retiro is open daily from 7am - 10pm (midnight in summer)
  

There is always lots of things going on in Madrid's most famous park.

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