This past Saturday Chadwell, Gabe, and I visited the Parque del Buen Retiro in Madrid. 

The following information was gathered from Wikipedia and paraphrashed by the author of this blog:

Situated at the edge of the center of Madrid, the Parque del Buen Retiro is about 350 acres and is close to both Museo del Prado and the Puerta de Alcalá. Under King Philip II, the architect Juan Bautista de Toledo enlarged the park during the latter half of the sixteenth century. The park was again extended in the 1620’s by Gaspar de Guzmán. The park has not always been open to the public. It was not until 1767 that the park was accessible to civilians. Before this, the park was meant only for the royal family and the monarch’s court.

During the reign of Charles IV, Juan de Villanueva's Astronomical Observatory was built. Estanque del Retiro, located towards the northern entrance of the park, is a large artificial lake that was constructed next to the enormous monument to King Alfonso XII. A statue stands among the many rose bushes called the Fountain of the Falling Angel that was inspired by a passage from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. Among all of the things within the park is a walkway known as the Paseo de las Estatuas or Paseo de Argentina where there are many sculptures of former kings sculpted between 1750 and 1753.