Retiro: The Great Pond & Alfonso XII
Why is it significant?
Lean on the balustrade and watch the rowing boats wobble across the water, oars splashing, couples arguing gently about who is steering. On the far side, a semicircle of columns rises behind a king on horseback, his statue high above steps where people sit eating ice cream.
Key Facts
| Place | Retiro: The Great Pond & Alfonso XII |
|---|---|
| Address | Paseo de Chile, Parque del Retiro, 28009 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.41710, -3.68400 |
| Part of Walk | Madrid's Landscape of Light: The Paseo del Arte, the Prado & the Retiro |
| Generated | Generated |
Lean on the balustrade and watch the rowing boats wobble across the water, oars splashing, couples arguing gently about who is steering. On the far side, a semicircle of columns rises behind a king on horseback, his statue high above steps where people sit eating ice cream.
This pond is almost four hundred years old. It was dug in the 1630s for Philip the Fourth's Buen Retiro, the pleasure palace that grew up beside the monastery of San Jerónimo you saw earlier. The court used it for boating, fireworks and plays staged on the water, and the king even enjoyed mock naval battles here. Imagine little warships firing powder in the middle of Madrid, while courtiers applauded from the banks.
For two centuries the park belonged to the crown, and ordinary people could enter only in limited ways. Then, after the revolution of 1868 sent Queen Isabella the Second into exile, the Retiro passed to the city. It became, as Madrileños still call it, the people's garden, and on a Sunday it proves it, with puppet shows, buskers, fortune tellers and families stretched out on the grass.
The monument across the water honours Alfonso the Twelfth, who died of tuberculosis in 1885 at just twenty-seven. It was paid for by public subscription and finished in 1922, with the bronze rider by Mariano Benlliure, the same sculptor who made the Goya statue at the Prado. Climb its steps and you get the best view in the park, straight down the length of the water.
In 2021 UNESCO declared this park and the Paseo del Prado a World Heritage Site, under a lovely name: the Landscape of Light. Now walk south along the water, then follow the signs to the Palacio de Cristal. Among chestnut trees and cypresses, a building made almost entirely of glass is waiting at the edge of a smaller lake.