Madrid/Retiro-Paseo del Arte

Retiro is a district in eastern-central Madrid. While it is dominated by the Retiro Park, it also houses 125,000 residents. This article also includes the Paseo del Arte where the city's most famous art museums are lined up. In 2021, much of this district was inscribed as a cultural site on the UNESCO World Heritage List.



Understand
The district Retiro is named after the Parque del Buen Retiro ("park of the good retreat"), a more than 350 acres large public park that has been developed since the 16th century. The landscape gardens were essentially shaped in the 1630s during the reign of Philip IV and were considered to be a "world art wonder" of their time. Buen Retiro park and palace served as the Spanish kings' court, especially during Lent and hot periods. An astronomical observatory and a museum of natural history (today's Prado) were situated within the extensive grounds. The attached palace was ruined during the Napoleonic Wars and the remaining park was re-assigned to the public in 1868.

Paseo del Arte means "walk of arts" or "arts avenue", sometimes called the "museum triangle", and is a ~1.3-km-long strip along which Madrid's most notable art museums are lined up: the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, CaixaForum and the National Centre of Modern Art "Reina Sofía".

Get in
Madrid's main station,, is near the southwestern corner of Retiro Park and the southern end of Paseo del Arte. Metro stations that serve this district are Retiro at the northern entrance to the park and Banca de España near the Thyssen museum (both served by line 2), Atocha near the botanic garden, CaixaForum and Reina Sofía museum, Menéndez Pelayo, Pacífico and Puente de Vallecas (all served by line 1), Ibiza (line 9), Sainz de Baranda (6, 9), Conde de Casal (6) and Estrella (9).

Museums
This is Madrid's museum district, named for the three major art museums clustered along Paseo del Prado east of the old city: the Museo del Prado, one of the finest art museums in the world, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, a baron's collection of classical art, and the Reina Sofia, Madrid's modern art museum. However, a couple of smaller museums also occupy the neighborhood which are well worth seeing as well.





Eat
There are many restaurants and tapas bars in the neighbouring barrio de las Letras, just a few hundred metres west of the Paseo del Arte, especially on and around Plaza Santa Ana (750 m west of the Thyssen Museum)