Vertical and Botanical Garden...and the Prado

Hello everyone...
This is another one of those blog posts where I show you what I did while I was on holiday for two weeks in Spain. And on one of the days, my brother and I went to the centre of Madrid and we saw the Prado museum (which is free for students, btw), the Royal Botanical Garden and the vertical garden. So I thought today that I would talk a little bit about those three things. 




First things first, the vertical garden. Its name is the Green Vertical Garden and it is a part of the newest museum in Madrid, the CaixaForum. I actually did go to that museum a few years ago but it was pouring with rain and so I didn't have the chance to look at the garden. There are 15,000 different species of plants on the wall and it was designed by Patrick Blanc, who would like to grow more gardens like it in the UK and China. CaixaForum is also a very interesting place but we didn't go in it on that particular day. We went to the Prado instead. Here is a picture of the vertical garden and that is my brother standing in front of it.

The Royal Botanical Garden, or the Real Jardín Botánico is in Madrid. (It is only about a five minute walk.) According to the little guide that they gave us when we bought our tickets, this garden were made on the order of King Fernando VI in 1755 but it was made on the banks of the Manzanares River. King Carlos III had it transferred to its location now on the Paseo del Prado and it was reopened in 1781. 

Now, I am not a plant fanatic in any sense of the word. I don't enjoy gardening, although I did like it when I was younger, and I don't study any science anymore. But, I can honestly say that you don't have to be interested in plants, to enjoy this garden. There are fruit trees and medicinal plants and a bonsai collection and a greenhouse with three sections of different regulated conditions for plants from the Canary Islands. There are plants from every continent and this garden has helped in scientific expeditions and discoveries all over the world. There is a huge collection of seeds there as well, to help with the reintroduction of species into the wild, research and the protection of biodiversity in Spain and the world. In the library, this garden has the biggest collection of books on botany in Spain, some dating back to the 17th and 18th century.  

I have to say that I am not the best at taking photos. I tend to get distracted by a lot of things and forget that I am photographing the whole park. I also, being me, didn't take pictures of the labels. So, I am just going to show the pictures that I took and hopefully, if you are interested, you can go one day and see for yourself. :) 

There were a lot of statues across the park...of kings probably. There are a lot of statues of kings in Madrid, on horseback usually.

This was a set of vines growing or something. Because it is so hot in Madrid for pretty much all the time in the summer, the plants need so much water and so there were hoses just lying on the soil spraying the plants. 

These sunflowers were huge! Also, while we were driving from Valencia to Madrid in the coach, I saw fields of sunflowers that were all facing the same way, towards the sun obviously. So, sometimes they were facing towards us and sometimes away and it was so cool!

This is my brother again, walking down one of the paths

A collection of plants above. I have a few more but I chose the nicest ones. They are from different areas in the garden but below is how most of the plants from the same species were organised, in regular rows with little hedges to separate them. Also, each plant had a label to say where it came from and was it was.

 Unfortunately, in the Prado, you are not allowed to take pictures so I have none. But, we did go inside and I really enjoyed it. I have been to the National Gallery in London many, many times and I am not a huge fan of art museums, although once or twice is alright for me. My brother is studying Goya, a Spanish artist for school and so we saw a lot of his paintings, (they have three rooms for Goya) and also there was a room full of statues in the basement. If you like art, or you study art, I recommend you go because it is free for students (Yay!) and it is interesting. 

I know I use the words 'interesting' and 'beautiful' a lot on my blog :/ Ah well. I do know other words but I don't spend much time editing the writing; I just write whatever I am thinking at the time. So, I'm sorry about that. 

Anyway, that is it for that blog post. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe found it a little intriguing/interesting. There are book reviews coming but I haven't finished them yet and I think I will publish all three at once. I also have a review on Segovia to finish. That will be coming soon. And stay tuned! I have another book coming out soon! I am so excited. 

Clare