The palace that is not there
The park was the grounds of the Buen Retiro palace, built for Philip IV in the 1630s as a retreat on what was then the edge of town. The palace itself is gone, wrecked during the Peninsular War, and two buildings survive from it. Neither is what older accounts say it is.
- The Casón del Buen Retiro, the old ballroom, with a ceiling by Luca Giordano. It held the Prado's nineteenth-century paintings, then Guernica from 1981 to 1992, and since 2007 it has been the Prado's study centre and library — for researchers, not visitors. Older accounts send the public in to see Sorolla; his collection is at the Museo Sorolla, his own house in Chamberí, and never was here.
- The Salón de Reinos, which was the Museo del Ejército. The Army Museum closed its Madrid premises in 2005 and reopened in the Alcázar of Toledo in July 2010. It is not in this park and has not been for twenty years. The building was transferred to the Prado and is being converted into a third wing of the museum, late and with no announced opening date.
While those two are in view, a sword can be laid to rest. Older accounts place El Cid's Tizona in the Army Museum here, and elsewhere in the Palacio Real. Both are wrong. It was shown in Madrid until 2007, when it was sold, and it is now in the Museo de Burgos — and its authenticity is genuinely disputed, with scholars arguing the blade may be a sixteenth-century assembly rather than anything El Cid held.
Walking round it
- The Estanque Grande, the great pond, was dug for the palace in the 1630s. Rowing boats still go out on it, bookable through the city's sports service, with wheelchair-accessible boats among them.
- The monument to Alfonso XII rises behind the water — a semicircular colonnade of 1902 paid for by public subscription, designed by José Grases Riera, with the equestrian bronze by Mariano Benlliure. It is the view everyone photographs.
- The Palacio de Cristal is the glasshouse at the southern end, built in 1887 by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco for an exhibition of Philippine flora, and modelled on Paxton's Crystal Palace in London. It is closed for structural repairs until 2027 — serious problems were found in both the iron frame and the glazing. Anything telling a reader to go inside is currently wrong. It is wrapped in an artwork meanwhile and is still worth walking to.
- The Palacio de Velázquez, nearby, is by the same architect and a few years older, built for a mining exhibition in 1883. It is named after him, not the painter, which catches people out. It is open, it is free, and the Reina Sofía uses it for temporary exhibitions.
- The Rosaleda, the rose garden, was laid out in 1915 by Cecilio Rodríguez, the park's head gardener — a man, and the gardens nearby carry his name too. Older accounts call them the Cecilia Rodríguez gardens.
The Fallen Angel, and two stories to drop
Among the roses stands El Ángel Caído, a bronze of Lucifer at the moment of falling, by Ricardo Bellver. Two claims attach themselves to it and both should go.
- It is not a monument to the Devil. Madrid council's own interpretation material for the park says the popular reading is false. Bellver's subject is Lucifer from Milton's Paradise Lost — a literary subject, modelled for a national fine-art competition, where it won a medal. The state bought it and cast it in bronze so it could go to the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878, which accepted only bronze or marble. The fountain and setting came later, and the monument was inaugurated in 1885.
- The 666 metres is a coincidence. The spot does sit at roughly that height above sea level, but Madrid averages around 655 metres, so a good deal of the city is at a similar altitude. There is no evidence the height was chosen, and the statue arrived before the circle was laid out around it.
The same sculptor made figures for the basilica of San Francisco el Grande across the city, if his hand is of interest.
The park closes in bad weather, and that is not a formality
This belongs on any current account and appears on none of the old ones.
Madrid operates a four-level weather alert protocol for its historic parks, keyed to forecast temperature, wind gusts and snow. On a yellow alert the playgrounds and sports areas shut; on orange, more areas close and outdoor events are suspended; on a red alert the Retiro is evacuated and closed completely, reopening about two hours afterwards.
The protocol exists because people have been killed. A man died under a falling branch in 2014, and in March 2018 a four-year-old boy was killed by a falling tree inside the park, after which the system was rewritten. It was tightened again in 2023. In a single recent year there were eleven red alerts. On a windy or very hot day, check before setting out.
Otherwise the park is free and open long hours — from six in the morning until midnight from April to September, and until ten the rest of the year.
What is around it
The Prado is a few minutes' walk from the park's western gates, and the Real Jardín Botánico sits between them — part of the same World Heritage inscription and a quieter proposition than either. The streets of the Salamanca district to the north are the luxury shopping quarter, dealt with on the shopping page.
One correction to the register of older accounts, which describe Madrid's weather as mild and the park as a place to enjoy warm sunshine. In July and August the Retiro at midday is not a pleasure, and the city now opens air-conditioned public buildings as cooling shelters. Early morning and evening are when the park is used.
General practicalities for the city are on the Madrid page.