Buen Retiro Park - Madrid, Spain

In June I visited Madrid just for a few days as part of a work trip, unfortunately I didn't get a lot of time to see the sights.  So the one evening I had free I checked TripAdvisor (as I usually do when I only have a few hours for tourism) and settled on Retiro Park.

Sadly I only had my phone for pictures....sorry guys.

This place is breathtaking, its super energetic even approaching dusk, there is tonnes to do and see and it stretches 1.4 square kilometers.  Though the park had existed for some time already in 1561 it was redesigned to have its distinctive avenues of trees and given a more structured layout.

Beautiful gardens and ponds are basically just scattered all over the place.

The above was some type of public forum type space, this lady was performing something for a crowd that came and went as they felt like it.

I should have actually gotten a closer photo of this small lake, it was SO beautiful.

Random museums and things just scattered around the park of course, as they should be.

Oh my god The Crystal Palace, this is one of the weirdest things I have come across.
Built in 1887 by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, it was originally designed to house a collection of plants from the Philippines as part of the General Exposition of the Philippine Islands held that year.

Now it is primarily used for various exhibitions... so imagine this if you can a wide eyed tourist Abigail wandering around a park, sees a sign for a crystal palace... and finds this weird looking building.

With ducks... And then decides to take a closer look because she can't really decide what this thing is for.

By random chance, an exhibition is currently happening so she goes inside.... what is the exhibition?
Its just a bunch of chairs.... and books.....
Congratulations you have just entered the Splendide Hotel exhibition, which is taken from a Rimbaud poem "And the Splendide Hotel was built in the chaos of ice and night of the Pole"

So what does it do? (from the pamphlet which I HAD to take just to decipher this mystery)

"several rocking chairs surrounded by books, inviting visitors to sit down and transport themselves to the worlds hidden inside the literary selection that the French artist has made for this occasion.  Authors like the Philippine Jose Rizal, Dostoyevsky, Ruben Dario, H.G Wells and Vila-Matas become companions on the voyage in time that Gonzales-Foerster encourages us to share"

It was very artistic I am sure, but also quite unnerving.

Cute pathways randomly appear throughout the park leading to yet more secret treasures, it really felt like everywhere I went was a complete theme change or another amazing curiosity.

Even the trees don't care what is expected of them.

I know this blog entry is not much, but I am actually heading back to Madrid next month so I will try to get some better pictures and maybe some more locations since I will likely be there for a week or so.

I will also post my Kyoto entry during this week I think....

Much love! Abigail

Further reading:
Retiro Park
Crystal Palace


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