The gardens are enormous, much bigger than La Granja, but not as nicely designed. The palace is on the river, but the gardens couldn't be contained so there are bridges over the river allowing the garden to sprawl over the other bank. We walked for about an hour through the garden, but it soon started looking more like a nature reserve as the gardeners ran out of things to do with all this space.



Aranjuez is known throughout the country for two things, asparagus and strawberries, and Madrilenos flock here on weekends just for these. We stopped at a grand cafe outside the palace for lunch, and of course ordered asparagus and strawberries (separate courses), just like everybody else. Surprisingly the asparagus came from a can and the strawberries were frozen, so I didn't really see the point.

Aranjuez's interior wins hands down, however. You have to take a guided tour to see it, but it's a succession of wildly themed rooms. There are quite a few with a Moorish theme, several Asian themed rooms and a couple of really beautiful, intricately decorated porcelain rooms.

122. Aranjuez

Next stop was Aranjuez, another baroque palace built at the same time as yesterday's La Granja. It's quite similar in fact, probably because it was built by the same king and also modeled after Versailles. I liked La Granja better, mainly because Aranjuez was built of brick, which isn't really a palatial building material.