Madrid - Fountains & Botanic Gardens
Fuentes
The Fuente de Cibeles
stands in the middle of the Plaza de Cibeles, a busy traffic roundabout at the
junction of the Paseo del Prado and the Calle de Alcala.
The plaza is regarded as
being Madrid’s best-known landmark and the fountain is considered a symbol of
Madrid.
Jose Hermosilla designed
the fountain in the late 18th Century and Ventura Rodriguez is named after
Cybele, the Greco-Roman goddess of Nature and shows her sitting in her chariot
drawn by a pair of lions.
The Fuente de Neptuno
stands in the middle of another busy roundabout on the Paseo del Prado, the
Plaza Canovas del Castillo. This
plaza is named after Antonio Canovas, a Prime Minister in 19th
Century Spain who was assassinated by an Italian anarchist.
The fountain another design
of Ventura’s as part of Carlos III’s bid to beautify eastern Madrid.
The central figure is Neptune in his chariot pulled by two horses.
Another fountain Fuente
de Apollo on the Paseo de Prado and another design of the architect,
Ventura, is the Fuente de Apollo. The
fountain stands adjacent to the Prado and represents the God Apollo together
with four groups of sculptures depicting the four seasons.
While not quite on the same scale as the previous fountains, the small fountain below brings a sense of cool to a busy intersection along Gran Via
The fountain and water feature below are along Paseo de Recoletos
The Royal Botanical Gardens immediately to the south of the Prado were inspird by Carlos III and designed in 1791 by Juan de Villanueva, the architect of the Prado, and Gomez Ortega, a botanist.
Below our intrepid travelers enter the garden seeking some rest and refreshment after an exhaustive time in the Prado.
They soon found a shady and relatively cool bench
while Madrilenas gathered nearby to discuss to week's events and display their fans.
With the temperature around 35 degrees this oasis was welcomed by man and bird alike.
The garden, as one would expect, contains numerous species of plants both edible and decorative and plants native to the Philippines and other Spanish 'colonies' are well represented.
Here we have one of the edible species
and here one of the decorative species.
