★★★★★ 5.0
Discover
El Retiro Park
The year is 1633—King Felipe IV commanded builders to craft something wild: a palace garden with twenty structures and an artificial lake for staging naval battles called naumaquias. That palace vanished, but the lake remains. You're in El Retiro, Madrid's 118-hectare treasure with 15,000 trees. That ancient cypress? Almost 400 years old—Madrid's oldest tree. But wait—the world's only devil statue sits in this park at exactly 666 meters elevation. It's called the Fallen Angel. Where Spanish kings once played... now you explore.
Did You Know?
- : El Retiro Park was originally built in the 17th century as a private royal retreat for King Felipe IV, but its transformation into a public park was sparked by a revolution—after Queen Isabella II was overthrown in 1868, the Glorious Revolution led to the park being opened to all citizens, making it a symbol of democracy and public access in Madrid.
- The park is home to the world-famous 'Statue of the Fallen Angel' (Ángel Caído), one of the few public monuments in the world dedicated to Lucifer. Sculpted by Ricardo Bellver in 1885, it stands on the spot where a royal porcelain factory once stood, blending myth, art, and history in a dramatic bronze figure with outstretched wings atop a pedestal.
- El Retiro Park features the Crystal Palace (Palacio de Cristal), a stunning glass pavilion inspired by London’s Crystal Palace, built in 1887 to house plants from the Philippines. Today, it serves as an art gallery and is a favorite spot for families, who love to spot the reflections of trees and sky in its mirrored walls.