While I found the round abouts to be an interesting part of the urban design in the last post, I found the prostitutes in the open space to be even more curious as part of my first impressions of Madrid. Parks and Open Space Madrid is really great about parks, playgrounds and open space in among the dense urban environment.
Almost every plaza has a park with benches and a playground. They have play equipment that was outlawed in the States years ago. The kids love the play equipment and the playgrounds. The playgrounds are always full of kids playing, families hanging out and people walking dogs basically all day. You see more families starting about pm on until pm or later.
During the day you see groups of kids on recess, adults swinging and walking their dogs, and moms with younger kids in the playgrounds. People tend to really use public areas. You do a lot of living and playing in the city streets, parks and cafe bars, as opposed to sitting at home and watching television although, I think a lot of people sit at home and watch TV also.
The Parque de Retiro is on the eastern side of the centro. This is a large park with all kinds of stuff: trees, well kept gardens, pathways for walking and running, streams, fountains, sculpture, lakes, a crystal palace, birds, ducks, swans, geese, extremely tame squirrels, cafe bars and sports facilities. You can rent boats to row on the larger lake and there are paved streets used for skating, cycling, and roller blading. We spend quite a bit of time in Retiro. It is a very nice park to hang out and relax in.
I walk 10 kilometers every morning, and the majority of the walk is in Retiro. Another beautiful park is Parque de Oeste. Oeste is 3 kms. Oeste is much more wild than Retiro, It has relatively steep slopes and many hills covered with grass, a large variety of trees and wild shrubs. There are pathways winding up, down and over the hills, and monuments dispersed among the foliage. You feel like you are in the mountains.
