Madrid: Retiro

How was your weekend? I am glad that I have found a little time to edit pictures and we are finally able to share more of the ones we took during the visit to my family this August in Madrid. We started this series with quite an unusual travel post: an outfit-ish session at my favorite place in the city, el Palacio de Cristal. However those felt far from being enough to show you how pretty is the Retiro, the park where the crystal palace is located.

The park has several areas and a medium-big extension, in terms of parks much (MUCH) bigger than anything inside Barcelona but smaller than Hyde Park or Central Park, just so you get an idea. Therefore we weren’t able to see all of it in a few hours – which isn’t that big of a problem because we will be surely back in our next Madrid visit – and chose the main attractions: the lake, the crystal palace, the artichoke fountain (interesting name or what?) and the fallen angel fountain (another rad one!)

Looove all the fall colors the trees already had!

One of the highlights of the park is the lake with the boathouse where you can rent little wooden boats. As boats fanatics we were thrilled to discover that it was going to be the first time my little nephew Samuel will not only be rowing one but even be inside one, that made it a done deal!

Have you ever rented one? One of our (silly?) dreams is to rent one in Central Park and maybe set a little picnic inside. The Retiro’s lake was surely much smaller than the one in New York, but it was equally fun to sail it and specially while teaching Samuel the rowing technique. The coordination of both rows is not that easy for a little kid, but he was really concentrated and decided to be a pro at it. I loved that he was so much into it and I couldn’t avoid to be extra cheesy, hence the pictures and my faces: proud aunty!

There are usually exhibitions inside the crystal palace, this time there was a recreation of a Nomad tent, the lighting of the greenhouse makes it work beautifully.

Making fun of the size of a kiddo… shame on me! ha!

What do you think about the Retiro? Isn’t it beautiful? As a tip we certainly recommend leaving this visit for the afternoon, specially if, like us, you are visiting the city during summer.

We are going to share the rest of the pics in our Madrid short guide at the end of this week, stay tuned because it will be fun and hopefully helpful if you are planning a short stay in Madrid.