Top 5 Things to Do in Aranjuez, Madrid

The short answer

Aranjuez is what happens when kings landscape a river valley for three centuries: a Bourbon palace on the Tagus, avenues plotted like a French garden the size of a town, and the UNESCO-listed Cultural Landscape of orchards and groves that fed the court its famous strawberries and asparagus. Rodrigo wrote the Concierto de Aranjuez about these gardens; spring here explains why.

The list, ranked

1. Palacio Real de Aranjuez — The Bourbons' spring residence — porcelain room, Farinelli's music salon, and the Tagus curling around the parterre outside.

2. Jardín del Príncipe — 150 hectares of riverside garden — follow the Tagus to the Casa del Labrador, the most extravagant neoclassical pavilion in Spain (book the interior).

3. The Tren de la Fresa — The 1851-route strawberry train, pulled by vintage stock with costumed hostesses serving fruit — weekends spring and autumn, from Madrid's Railway Museum.

4. Chiquerón & the asparagus season — April–June the town's menus run on its own asparagus and fresones — eat them at the market bars for half the palace-square prices.

5. Palace parterre & the Príncipe riverbank — 5 km · 2 h. Palace facade → Parterre garden → Jardín de la Isla between the river channels → the long riverside avenue of the Jardín del Príncipe to the Casa del Labrador and back by the falúas museum. Flat, shaded, birdsong throughout.

Make a day of it

Cercanías C-3 from Atocha every 15–20 minutes (45 min); the station is 10 minutes' walk from the palace through the Príncipe garden's edge. Drivers take the A-4 (45 min). The Tren de la Fresa runs selected weekends April–June and September–October.