Madrid Puerta de Atocha: if there is a sweeter spot to wait for your train than this station in central Madrid, I’ve yet to find it. The biggest railway station in Spain was the first to be built in the capital in 1851 – although it’s now actually three stations in one.
As the city’s need for a larger station grew, the rail hub was remodelled in the 1980s and mirrored the urban renewal in the surrounding space. Architect Rafael Moneo (who also revamped the nearby Prado museum) took the greenhouse-style roof as inspiration to create an abundant, 4,000-square-metre tropical garden with more than 7,200 plants growing under the natural light.
The original arched iron and glass-topped train shed, built in 1892, is now a peaceful place for passengers to sit on benches overhung by the leafy fronds of the banana, coconut and breadfruit trees added 100 years later. The wide paths to enter the garden are currently closed, but you can still view this natural beauty from each side from the ground and the higher floors.
Puerta de Atocha is Spain’s biggest station
(Jo Fernandez)
Equally lovely was the turtle pond – removed due to madrileños (Madrid residents) dumping their unwanted turtles and fish here (and since transported to the Jose Peña wildlife centre, Navas del Rey, an hour’s drive from Madrid). But all is not lost – now the area is used as a space for cultural and environmental projects.
Shops and restaurants lining the space include a branch of Enrique Tomás, a pretty good chiringuito-style deli-slash-tapas bar dishing out walnut-topped goat’s cheese salads in full view of the garden. You can also pick up a packet of jamon ibérico or a pack of cured sheep’s cheese to stash in your case and beat the typical British railway user’s soggy sandwich.
Built in the late Eighties and early Nineties, the second element, Puerta de Atocha, was added as the adjoining hub for high-speed AVE trains and the third, Atocha-Cercanías, for commuter lines and medium and long-distance trains.
The original arched iron and glass-topped train shed, built in 1892, is now a peaceful place for passengers to sit on benches overhung by the leafy fronds of the banana, coconut and breadfruit trees
Here also is the memorial to the victims of the 2004 terrorist bombing, when 193 people died. The large glass cylinder in front of the station reveals little from the outside – but inside, hundreds of condolence messages line the 12m-high dome, designed to highlight…
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