Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Sometimes called a wood, others a park, the Casa de Campo is Madrid's lung, an enormous green area to the west of the city centre. Its 4,255 acres (New York's Central Park has 843, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens together a mere 625) have historically encompassed a royal hunting estate, a kind of hacienda supplying Spain's court with agricultural produce, the front line in the Battle of Madrid in the Spanish Civil War, an open-air brothel (one of Europe's largest) and a recreational area including Madrid Zoo, an amusement park (the Parque de Atracciones), a lake, trade fair and conference centre and a new sports venue, Madrid Arena.

The Casa de Campo Today. Most of the Casa de Campo is more countryside than park, essentially Mediterranean woodland, similar to the dehesa, trees such as holm-oaks and stone pine, well-spaced, but providing shade to largely thin, grassy undergrowth. This is managed land, though, the terrains purchased by the Spanish royal family being converted from farmland previously dedicated to the cultivation of vines, olives and cereals into the extensive woods required for hunting. In addition, the front line of the siege of Madrid ran right through the Casa de Campo, zig-zagging up from where the Parque de Atracciones now stands to the Puente de los Franceses and the Ciudad Universitaria on the other side of the River Manzanares. The damage caused by three years of fierce trench warfare was tremendous (you can still see scars caused by artillery fire on some trees), and massive reforestation was required after the war, so much so that nearly half the park's tree population was planted in the fifties, hence the disproportionate number of pines.

Flora. Apart from the holm-oak and pine mentioned, other trees found include ash, elm, melojo oak, poplar, willow, cypress, plane and cedar. Wild rose, hawthorn, bramble and are to be found in thickets of undergrowth, rosemary grows in sometimes impenetrably thick clumps, and something called lygos springs up where damaged holm-oaks have not recovered or been replaced.

Fauna. Were it not for human activity, this habitat would still be home to the kind of large game animals such as deer and wild boar found in the Monte del Pardo north of the Casa de Campo. It still houses a relatively rich fauna, especially birds such as magpie and jackdaw, though nothing to get very excited about. One of the most remarkable though unwelcome inhabitants of the Casa de Campo is the cotorra, a particularly noisy kind of parakeet, which builds large, untidy nests in the trees near the lake. It is considered an invader, the Spanish population being descended from exotic pets unwisely released into the wild when their owners could no longer bear their chattering.

Otherwise, the fauna of the Casa de Campo is small and reclusive, mammals such as rabbits, though the once-abundant squirrels seem to have disappeared. Hare can occasionally be seen in relatively large groups, especially in spring, when they congregate for mating activities. Small lizards of different kinds are relatively abundant, and I have read that the rare Jewelled Lacerta, a large, green lizard considered beautiful by herpetophiles, can occasionally be seen. But I have never come across one of the four species of viper that are supposed to exist in the Casa de Campo, either.

Teleférico. The Teleférico de Madrid is a cable car which runs from the Paseo del Pintor Rosales, north of the Plaza de España, over the River Manzanares and the M-30 ring road, into the heart of the Casa de Campo. It is a splendid experience, providing views over the whole of the west of Madrid, especially of the Palacio Real, as well as of the Casa de Campo itself. Once there, you may choose to head north or west into the relative wilderness, south to the recreational facilities such as the zoo and amusement park, or east to the lake.

The Casa de Campo Tamed. According to the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Madrid Zoo is considered one of the most important in the world, because it enables visitors to see "endangered and rare species such as koalas, red pandas, Asian rhinoceros, atlas lions, white tigers, European bison, uros, gorillas, giant turtles, bongos, kulans, bald eagles, and Saharan gazelles, just to name a few." The EAZA goes on to note that the Zoo-Aquarium works with over twenty European Endangered Species Programmes. Its origins lie in the Casa de Fieras founded in the Buen Retiro by Carlos III, making it one of the oldest zoos in the world, though it was reinaugurated in 1972. A visitor review I found echoes my feelings: it is like Spain itself, very enjoyable but extremely noisy.

Madrid's Parque de Atracciones has all you expect from an amusement park, and it is a great place to take the kids as a reward for being good when you forced them to accompany you to the Prado Museum - fair's fair, after all. It also puts on surprisingly good free concerts in summer.

El Lago, the Casa de Campo's artificial lake (artificial but supplied by a real stream), is the only one of the three original lakes landscaped by Sabatini to survive (as everywhere in the world nowadays, feeding the ducks is not allowed any more). You'll probably see anglers casting for carp here, and you may rent a rowing boat for a spin around.

East of the lake, you find the Reservado Grande and its smaller brother, the Reservado Chico, formal eighteenth-century gardens which also include the historic Jardín de Plantas Medicinales, Medicinal Plant Garden, founded by Philip II. It has been alternately restored and neglected for decades and has recently been seriously damaged by roadworks.

East of the Parque de Atracciones, between the Metro station Lago and the Avenida de Portugal to the south, lies the Recinto Ferial, a trade fair ground with half a dozen pavilions for exhibitions of different kinds, from heavy machinery to professional congresses. To non-business visitors, its main point of interest is its Paseo de la Gastronomia, aka the Calle de las Provincias, where pavilions previously dedicated to Madrid's regions have been converted into fine, slightly over-expensive restaurants.

Madrid Arena is a new sports pavilion, designed for Olympic events such as tennis, basketball, five-a-side football and so on.

History of the Casa de Campo. The Casa de Campo came into existence in the sixteenth century, its official birthdate being 1562, when Philip II bought an estate on the other side of the River Manzanares from the Alcázar, predecessor to the present Royal Palace. This estate was enlarged with purchases of adjacent land, all to be dedicated to the recreation of the Spanish royal family. Originally, it was considerably smaller than now and essentially a hunting estate, though it also included formal gardens, including the historic Medicinal Herb Garden mentioned above. In the 18th century, more land acquisition brought it up to something like its current size, but its conditions of use changed and it became a provider of agricultural produce to the court. Alfonso XIII, who came to the throne at birth in 1886 and effectively reigned from 1902 until the Republic was declared in 1931. The government handed the Casa de Campo over to the people of Madrid for use as a park. During the Spanish Civil War, the front-line of the siege of Madrid ran north-south through the Casa de Campo, and it suffered tremendouly in consequence - lines of trenches and remains of pill-boxes and other fortifications can still be seen. After the war, it had to be kept closed until 1947 because of the mines and shells strewn around it. The buildings and complexes in the south of the park, north of the Avenida de Portugal - the Zoo, amusement park, trade fairground, etc. - date from the nineteen fifties and sixties onward.

Warning. In the eighties and nineties, the Casa de Campo became a huge open-air brothel at night, prostitutes of all genders plying their wares to cruising drivers, and entering it after dark became highly unrcommendable to all except their customers. It has now been closed to traffic exept for rush hours, but I still wouldn't enter the park at night myself, except for its better lit parts, so I have to advise you to avoid it.