CASA DE CAMPO

Description

Essentials about Casa de Campo in brief

If you want to relax a little in the green during a visit to Madrid, you should make your way to the Casa de Campo. With a gigantic area of over 1,700 hectares, Casa de Campo is the largest publicly accessible park in the Spanish capital. It begins right on the Manzanares River and stretches far to the west of the city. The spectrum of attractions in the park ranges from walking and jogging to cycling and boating to a visit to the zoo or a ride on the cable car.

The attractions of Casa de Campo

In the park you can not only walk, jog or ride a bike, but also go to the swimming pool, take a boat across a lake, have fun in an amusement park, attend an event at the IFEMA fairgrounds, play sports at various facilities or observe hundreds of species of animals at Madrid Zoo. And there’s even a cable car that connects the Casa de Campo with Parque del Oeste on the other side of the river for a great view of the park.

The history of Casa de Campo

The history of Casa de Campo dates back to King Philip II, who moved his royal court from Brussels to Madrid in 1561. To isolate his new residence from the rest of the city, the king successively expropriated and bought up lands around the castle. In addition, the king, a hunting enthusiast, was aware of the rich hunting grounds around Monte de El Pardo in the north of the city and wanted to connect his palace to his favorite hunting reserve via the lands of Casa de Campo.

In the course of his land acquisition, Philip II also appropriated the country house (casa de campo) of the nobleman Francisco de Vargas, which became the name-giver for the area, and had it converted into a hunting lodge. The architect of the hunting lodge, Juan Bautista de Toledo, was also responsible for the later construction of the nearby gardens El Reservado. Baroque influences in garden architecture were incorporated into these gardens for the first time in Spain. It was not until 1931, with the proclamation of the Second Republic of Spain, that Casa de Campo was opened to the public.