Botanical Garden
We wanted to visit the Prado Museum of Madrid but when we arrived at the entrance... well, we couldn't even see the entrance. Too many people were standing in line to visit it.
It just took us a few steps to realize there was a quiet and lovely place in front of it waiting for us: the Royal Botanical Garden.
It was founded in 1755 by King Ferdinand VI and installed near what is called today "Puerta de Hierro" (next to the Manzanares River).
In 1774, architects Francesco Sabatini and Juan Villanueva were ordered by King Charles III to move the garden to its current location and to organize it into three level terraces.
This garden was made to exhibit plants, promote expeditions for the discovery of new plants species and teach botany.
It now contains more than 30,000 plants and flowers, and about 1,500 trees, through three terraces and two greenhouses.
Lots of plants had already come into flowers because it's summer but most of the 2,000 species of dahlias were flowered and it was beautiful. But it's probably even more beautiful at springtime when all trees blossom...
We could walk through small paths under the shades of big beautiful trees (oak-trees, palm trees, cedars, bamboos...), some of them lead to little fountains or ponds.
Once into these gardens, we managed to forget the avenue (and its traffic) that's next to it, we almost can't hear a thing, except cicadas' warbling. It's quiet and refeshing.
To see more tropical plants, and feel more humidity, the greenhouses are open and shelter amazing species of plants. One of them also shelters fishes in a basin.
Even if my opinion can't really be unbiased (because I'm crazy about everything when it comes to Nature and trees) it's a real heaven of peace in the middle of a more than 3-million-inhabitants city.
When is it open ?
From November to February: from 10 am to 6 pm.
March and October from 10 am to 7 pm.
April and September from 10 am to 8 pm.
From May to August from 10 am to 9 pm
Entrance:
3€
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