SPAIN | Madrid, Spain Travel Guide
Monday, February 17, 2025
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Puerta de Alcala
Plaza de la Independenceia
Madrid
Communidad de Madrid
Spain
Type: Cultural Interest
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Madrid
Communidad de Madrid
Spain
Type: Cultural Interest
Comments ( 0 )
Rating (0 Votes)
Nothing is so typically “Madrileño” as a Sunday afternoon spent winding down from the weekend thrash on a lazy walk through the sprawling Parque del Retiro (Metro, Retiro, Atocha). The paths leading through this 350-acre park are shaded by over 15,000 trees and teeming with old and young lovers strolling hand in hand, cyclists, musicians playing everything from the didgeridoo to the accordion, jugglers, crafts stands and painters eager to scrawl your portrait and exaggerate those most unappealing features. The park was originally the site of gardens surrounding Phillip IV’s Retiro Palace, but since those days the flower beds, ponds and shaded, grassy knolls have been opened to the public and the park is now a myriad of activities, with weekend concerts in the open-air theater and puppet shows at Retiro’s Municipal Puppet Theater (Sat. & Sun. from Oct.-May at 1 pm).
After dodging traffic and squinting in hopes of making out the bullet holes in the Puerta de Alcala (stark reminders of Prime Minister Eduardo Dato’s assassination in 1921), enter the park on the corner at Plaza de La Independencia and keep on walking (or rent a bike inside the park for the afternoon).
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