Aranjuez FAQ

Aranjuez is one of the best: a World Heritage Site with a royal palace, three free historic gardens and a river, about 45 minutes from Atocha by commuter train. You can add Chinchón, half an hour away by car.

Toledo is a monumental hilltop city with a cathedral, synagogues and El Greco; it's more intense and busier. Aranjuez is a landscape of palace, gardens and river, flat and calm, ideal for strolling, children or autumn. With two days, do both: they're 49 km apart.

Yes. The C-3 commuter train leaves from Atocha and Sol and takes about 45 minutes. Everything important is walkable from the station.

It can be almost free: the gardens cost nothing and the train is covered by a zone C1 travel pass. The palace is €9 (free on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons for EU and Ibero-American citizens).

€9 general and €4 reduced. The guided tour in Spanish is €17. The ticket includes the Royal Barge Museum.

On Wednesdays and Sundays from 15:00 for EU and Ibero-American citizens (ticket office only), and for everyone on 18 May and 12 October.

Every Monday, plus some holidays (in 2026: 1 and 6 January, 1 and 30 May, 4 September and 24, 25 and 31 December).

Yes. The Parterre, the Island Garden and the Prince's Garden are free. You only pay to enter the palace, the Casa del Labrador or the Royal Barge Museum.

About 45 minutes from Atocha on the C-3 commuter line. It also stops at Sol.

About 47 km south. By car, from Puerta del Sol to the Royal Palace is about 53 km and 50 minutes without traffic.

There's a paid public car park on Calle Valeras, about 200 metres from the palace, open 24 hours. In the centre there are free and pay-and-display streets: check the signs. On spring weekends everything fills up early.

There's no direct train. Driving is the practical option: 49 km and about 46 minutes.

Yes, entry to the garden is free every day. You only pay for the Casa del Labrador (€10, guided tour) and the Barge Museum, which is included in the Royal Palace ticket.

Yes, on a lead and cleaning up after it. Dogs are also allowed in the Island Garden.

No. Cycling isn't allowed inside the historic gardens. Calle de la Reina, which runs alongside, is a lovely ride.

At dusk: around 18:30 in winter and as late as 21:30 in high summer. It opens every day at 8:30.

Spring (April to June), with the gardens in bloom and strawberry season in May, and autumn (October and November), with golden avenues, the Strawberry Train and the Early Music Festival.

Yes. The average July high is around 34 °C. Visit the gardens early or around sunset and do the palace at midday.

The Parterre and Island Garden fountains are off from December to February. The Chinescos pond runs all year during garden hours.

Among others: Hercules and the Hydra, Venus (commissioned in 1569), the Harpies (1615–1618), Vertumnus (popularly called Apollo), Neptune (by Alessandro Algardi), the Hours (or Clock), Bacchus, Diana and the Boticaria.

For several hours a day, especially at weekends. They are switched off from December to February.

See the peacocks in the Island Garden, the Royal Barge Museum, the Chinescos pond, take a boat or canoe on the Tagus, and ride the Strawberry Train in season.

Yes, to the Prince's Garden and the Island Garden, always on a lead and cleaning up after it.

Eating or lying on the lawns of the historic gardens isn't allowed. There are benches along the paths.

No, cycling isn't allowed inside the gardens.

Not without permission. Any filming, activity or drone flight in the palace or gardens requires authorisation from Patrimonio Nacional.

Yes, the Royal Palace and the Royal Barge Museum are accessible with a manual wheelchair. The Casa del Labrador is not.

Under Philip V, in the first half of the 18th century, to a design by Esteban Marchand with planting by Esteban Boutelou. The fountains and its present look came later.

Yes. Most visitors go back to Madrid the same day and miss sunset on the river, the gardens open late in summer and evening concerts. With one night you can also see Chinchón or Toledo the next day.

The first week of September (Mutiny Festival), the end of May (Fiestas de San Fernando) and spring and autumn weekends when the Strawberry Train runs.

Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only, 11:00–18:00 in winter and until 19:00 from April to September.

€10 per person, with a compulsory guided tour of about 50 minutes. Book on the Patrimonio Nacional website.

Yes. It reopened in October 2025 after a full restoration of about €10 million that began after storm Filomena.

It's very short: about 30 to 40 days, usually in May. The strawberries are picked by hand.

The Aranjuez strawberry (fresa) is small, very fragrant and delicate. The large supermarket kind (fresón) is bigger, firmer and grown in huge quantities.

Those from the orchards: asparagus, artichokes, broad beans and strawberries in spring. Traditional menus also feature pheasant, partridge and, in some places, frogs' legs.

El 19 de marzo y el 2 de mayo, from the first series of the National Episodes. Its narrator, Gabriel Araceli, travels from Madrid to Aranjuez at weekends to see Inés and lives through the night of the 1808 uprising there.

Not inside: today it's a school run by the Sagrada Familia congregation. You can see the building from Calle del Príncipe, next to the Osuna palace.

Yes. The Royal Palace of Aranjuez ticket also gives access to the Royal Barge Museum.

A long, light rowing boat used by kings and dignitaries for river outings. Royal ones were richly carved and gilded.

UNESCO listed the Aranjuez Cultural Landscape in 2001 for the relationship between nature and human work: rivers, riverside groves, orchards, gardens, palace and a planned town forming a single landscape created over centuries.

An uprising on 17–19 March 1808 in which townspeople and part of the court stormed the palace of the minister Godoy. Godoy was captured and Charles IV abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand VII.

On 9 February 1851, with the Madrid–Aranjuez line, the second in mainland Spain after Barcelona–Mataró.

The first week of September. In 2026 it ran from 2 to 6 September. It has been a Festival of International Tourist Interest since 2014.

The Fiestas de San Fernando, at the end of May (the patron saint's day is 30 May). In 2026 they ran from 27 to 31 May. The patroness, the Virgen de las Angustias, is celebrated on 15 September.

Santiago Bonavía, royal architect, for Ferdinand VI. It was built around 1750–1752 on the south side of the square.

In spring and autumn, at weekends and on some holidays. In autumn 2026: 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 24, 25 and 31 October and 1, 7 and 8 November.

It leaves Madrid's Railway Museum at 10:00, reaches Aranjuez around 11:00 and returns from Aranjuez station at 18:38.

Yes. A tourist boat, the Curiosity, runs guided 45-minute trips, and companies and a canoe club hire out canoes and run kayak routes in front of the palace.

One of the events of the Mutiny Festival in September: groups of locals float down the river in home-made, fancy-dress boats.