I know what people will think - has she finally lost it and is writing about train stations? Is this girl a closet trainspotter with no life? No. I don't have a fetish for train stations or watching trains but bare with me on this one.
Atocha is a train station, no denying that fact. It is also a train station with a nasty near-past too. However Atocha is no ordinary train station - it is part train station/part botanical garden. Yes I know that sounds strange but its true. Last summer when my boyfriend at the time was visiting me, we came here together. We had spent the day in the Reina Sofia museum (which is located next to Atocha) and came out looking for a coffee/beer. I saw the station across road and remembered something odd about it from my guide book. I suggested we investigate it since we were right there. We ran across the road while the little green man on the traffic lights was flashing and bleeping and found our way into the station.
I knew there was a garden inside, but not this! From walking inside what seems like your bog-standard 19th century style train station into a colonial-tropical haven! The humidity hits you in the face as you walk in (its so dry in Madrid - especially in the summer) and you look up to see palms and other tropical trees and plants. Look down you see little terrapins swimming in the pond below. The whole grand setting of this iron-wrought train station gives it that glamorous colonial appeal. You feel like someone out of a Kipling novel.
We found a bar on the top of the station over looking the gardens; this too was done in colonial style and had a kind of Indian theme to its architecture. We sat on the terrace drinking our cool beers enjoying the view of the palms below us forgetting we were in Madrid; and that we had been transported back in time and across the Indian Ocean. Its not the most beautiful garden I have seen in my life, nor is is the most beautiful in Madrid. However its most unlikely setting does add a kind of quirk appeal to it though. If you are ever passing buy do pop in and take a beer!
Atocha is a train station, no denying that fact. It is also a train station with a nasty near-past too. However Atocha is no ordinary train station - it is part train station/part botanical garden. Yes I know that sounds strange but its true. Last summer when my boyfriend at the time was visiting me, we came here together. We had spent the day in the Reina Sofia museum (which is located next to Atocha) and came out looking for a coffee/beer. I saw the station across road and remembered something odd about it from my guide book. I suggested we investigate it since we were right there. We ran across the road while the little green man on the traffic lights was flashing and bleeping and found our way into the station.
I knew there was a garden inside, but not this! From walking inside what seems like your bog-standard 19th century style train station into a colonial-tropical haven! The humidity hits you in the face as you walk in (its so dry in Madrid - especially in the summer) and you look up to see palms and other tropical trees and plants. Look down you see little terrapins swimming in the pond below. The whole grand setting of this iron-wrought train station gives it that glamorous colonial appeal. You feel like someone out of a Kipling novel.
We found a bar on the top of the station over looking the gardens; this too was done in colonial style and had a kind of Indian theme to its architecture. We sat on the terrace drinking our cool beers enjoying the view of the palms below us forgetting we were in Madrid; and that we had been transported back in time and across the Indian Ocean. Its not the most beautiful garden I have seen in my life, nor is is the most beautiful in Madrid. However its most unlikely setting does add a kind of quirk appeal to it though. If you are ever passing buy do pop in and take a beer!
