Galdós's Aranjuez and the uprising of 1808
A literary walk through the Aranjuez of Galdós's National Episodes: Godoy's house, the Parterre on the night of the 1808 uprising and the Prince's Garden.
Galdós sent the narrator of his National Episodes, Gabriel Araceli, to Aranjuez at the moment Spanish history turned: the uprising of March 1808 that brought down Godoy and made Carlos IV abdicate. Every Saturday night Gabriel rides down from Madrid on a carters’ wagon to see Inés, and ends up in the crowd that storms the favourite’s house.
At last dawn finds us coming down the Cuesta de la Reina, from where you can see the whole of the immense valley where the Tagus and the Jarama meet; we cross the famous long bridge; later we enter the Calle Larga, and at last we set foot in the square of the Royal Site.
This route links the places from the novel that are still standing. In the morning, the uprising; in the afternoon, the Aranjuez of Gabriel and Inés’s Sundays, among gardens and rivers.
For the full story of the uprising, read the history of Aranjuez; for the September festival, the festival calendar.
The plan
10:00
Plaza de San Antonio
On the eve of the uprising, groups of people roamed 'more or less tumultuously' through the streets of the Royal Site and the Plaza de San Antonio. Start here, where Gabriel watches the strangers arrive.
10:30
Godoy's house
The palace of Manuel Godoy, the 'Prince of Peace', still stands on Calle del Príncipe, next to the Osuna palace. On the night of 17 March 1808 the crowd stoned its windows and stormed it. Today it is the Sagrada Familia school: you can only see it from outside.
11:15
The Parterre and the Hercules fountain
Waiting in the dark in front of the palace, Gabriel makes out 'the marble Antaeus, lifted off the ground by Hercules' in the great fountain at the edge of the Parterre. The fountain is still there.
11:45
Plaza de Parejas and the Royal Palace
The court was in this palace when Carlos IV abdicated in favour of his son Fernando on 19 March 1808. Every September, in this same square, local people re-enact the uprising.
13:30
Lunch in the old town
Gabriel and his friends celebrate in the tavern; you can do it at leisure in any of the streets in the centre.
16:30
The Prince's Garden
On Sundays after lunch, Gabriel, Inés and Father Celestino 'go for a walk in the Prince's Garden, if the weather is good and the paths are dry'. Follow the avenues along the river.
18:00
To the Tagus and the Jarama, from Legamarejo
Gabriel and Inés end the afternoon where the Tagus and the Jarama 'embrace and mingle their waters in a single stream'. From the Puerta de Legamarejo, Calle Lemus runs between market gardens to the Tagus: a flat loop of about 3.5 km that comes back along the bank.
Before you go
- The novel is free: it's in the public domain and on Project Gutenberg, in Spanish. Before you come, read chapter I (the arrival and Sundays in Aranjuez) and chapter IX (the night of the uprising).
- The 'famous long bridge' Gabriel crosses is the Puente Largo over the Jarama, built in 1761, on the M-305 road. You cross it on the way to or from Chinchón.
- The last stretch to the exact meeting of the two rivers has no path and crosses farmland. When you see the Tagus at the end of Calle Lemus, head back along the bank.
- If you can pick your date, come for the Fiestas del Motín in the first week of September: the re-enactment in the Plaza de Parejas is the scene from the novel, with hundreds of local people.
Questions people ask
Which Galdós novel is set in Aranjuez?
Can you visit Godoy's palace in Aranjuez?
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