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From the Retiro's boating lake to royal woodland — Madrid's green in every scale
For a city on a dry plateau, Madrid is extravagantly green: a former royal hunting estate five times the size of Central Park begins at a metro stop, a 125-hectare formal garden anchors the museum mile, and the region's crown of sierra parks starts an hour up the rails. Summer evenings the parks are where the city goes; in the August heat they're how you survive the afternoon.
Everything here is free except the Botanical Garden's €4, and each entry names the barrio that puts it at your door.
Row the Estanque under Alfonso XII's colonnade, find the Crystal Palace, and stay for the Sunday drummers — the city's living room, UNESCO-listed with the Prado boulevard.
Eight thousand species in terraces beside the Prado — the €4 escape hatch when the museum mile overwhelms.
1,700 hectares of former royal hunting ground — take the Teleférico cable car over it, rent a kayak on the lake, and watch the sunset skyline from the water.
The motorway buried, the Manzanares reborn: 10 km of riverside lawns, urban beaches, and the Matadero arts centre in the old slaughterhouse.
The genuine Egyptian temple on its ridge, the rose garden below, and the city's definitive sunset — ten minutes from Gran Vía.
A duchess's 18th-century fantasy garden — labyrinth, follies, and a Civil War bunker beneath. Weekends only, capped entry, criminally unknown.
Aranjuez's river gardens and La Herrería's oak meadows under the monastery — the imperial-scale versions, each an easy train from Atocha.
Pine forests, glacial lagoons and the Lozoya valley's meadows — the biggest garden of all starts at Cercedilla station.