The Island Garden and the Parterre

You enter through the Parterre, the French garden beside the palace. The Island Garden is surrounded by the Tagus and an artificial channel that forms the Castañuelas waterfall, the work of Santiago Bonavía. Philip II began it in 1560 with Juan Bautista de Toledo: a central axis with small squares and marble fountains brought from Italy from 1564. It is the short, shady walk after the Royal Palace.

Hours and admission

Admission is free and it opens every day. Patrimonio Nacional publishes the hours in stages: from late October to February, from 8:00 to 18:30; from 1 to 15 March until 19:00; and in high summer, from 16 June to 15 August, until 21:30. In March and October, with the clock change, weekend hours vary. According to its latest notice, the Island, the Parterre and the Isabel II garden are open, with no capacity limit.

The Parterre, first

In front of the palace, the Parterre is a French-style garden from the reign of Philip V, early eighteenth century, attributed to Marchand and enclosed by a moat. In the nineteenth century curving paths of Romantic taste were added. Its showiest fountain is that of Hercules and Antaeus, commissioned by Ferdinand VII in 1827, with Hercules lifting the giant off the ground; in the centre is the Ceres fountain, and beside the palace the two small Nereid fountains, brought from La Granja in 1744.

The fountains of the Island

From the Parterre you cross the channel by a flight of steps and reach the first fountain, Hercules and the Hydra, with a black jasper base and eight marble figures, commissioned by Philip IV. Following the central axis you meet Apollo, whose little square was called the Puerta del Sol of Aranjuez; the Clock, in which the shadow of the jet marks the hours on the rim like a sundial; the Boy with the Thorn, a child pulling a thorn from his foot between columns with harpies; Venus, in an octagonal square; Bacchus, seated on a barrel, a gift from the Grand Duke of Florence to Philip III; and at the end, Neptune, with a bronze group by Alessandro Algardi.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the central walk was covered by mulberry tunnels and wooden galleries, which disappeared in the eighteenth century. The great stone benches in the little squares were designed by Sabatini under Charles III. In the north-east corner is the Emparrado, a former walled kitchen garden where strawberries and asparagus were grown for the palace. The far end, the Isleta, was made between 1731 and 1737 as a viewpoint over the Tagus.

How to do it

Allow an hour to walk the axis to Neptune and back. It is a flat walk, with no slopes, suitable for pushchairs. For lunch, El Rana Verde is over the Tagus, between the palace and the gardens. If you have energy left, the Prince's Garden is on the other side of Calle de la Reina.