The kings in the park

The row of statues along this avenue depicts the kings of Spain, and they stand here because they never made it to the spot they were meant for: the balustrade on top of the Royal Palace, a couple of kilometres to the west.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, dozens of them were carved from soft stone to crown the new palace with a cornice full of monarchs. They were never put up there. The story goes that Queen Isabel de Farnesio dreamed the statues came tumbling down and crushed the palace, while the more sober explanation is that their weight and the taste of the next generation sank the whole idea. Whatever happened, the kings were scattered across the city, and some of them ended up here.

On the Plaza de Oriente you'll find another group from the same series, and our walk past the icons of Madrid goes into that in more detail.

We follow the avenue until it reaches the water of the great pond.