Jardín del Capricho
Whimsical eighteenth-century garden of follies, a maze and a lake, hiding a Civil War command bunker below.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Jardín del Capricho in Madrid starts with the Duchess of Osuna, who bought this land in 1787 and spent decades filling it with follies, a maze, a lake and a dance pavilion built purely for pleasure, work that outlasted her own life. It then drops fifty feet underground to a command bunker engineers dug beneath the garden in 1937, during the siege of Madrid in the Spanish Civil War, and describes the scale of tunnels built into the hillside. Picture the statues and strollers above while that bunker was in use below.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Campo del Moro
Romantic royal garden of sweeping lawns, ancient fountains, and a secret tunnel once used for a king's escape.
Parque del Oeste
Sloped hillside park with an ancient Egyptian temple, civil-war bunkers, and a rose garden.
Casa de Campo
Royal hunting ground turned public park, its highest hill scarred with civil-war trenches.
Sabatini Garden
Formal terraced garden with a central pool and clipped hedges, lined with marble statues meant for a palace roofline.
Azotea del Círculo
Rooftop terrace atop a historic tower, crowned by a bronze goddess statue with sweeping city views.
Teleférico en Rosales
Aerial cable car gliding above a historic park to a hilltop once scarred by civil war artillery.