Casa de Campo Travel Guide

If you want to jog, play tennis, swim, picnic, go to the fairground or see pandas, then the Casa de Campo is the place to head. This enormous expanse of heath and scrub is in parts surprisingly wild for a place so easily accessible from the city; other sections have been tamed for more conventional pastimes. Far larger and more natural than the city parks, the Casa de Campo can be reached by metro (Métro: Batán/Lago), various buses (#33 from Príncipe Pío is the easiest), or the cable car. The walk from the Príncipe Pío station via the Puente del Rey isn't too strenuous either.

Throughout the park there are picnic tables and café-bars, a jogging track with exercise posts, a municipal open-air swimming pool (daily June-Sept 10.30am-8pm; €3) close to Metro Lago, tennis courts, and rowing boats to hire on the lake (again near Metro Lago).

Sightseeing attractions include a Zoo (daily 10.30am-dusk; €11.20; www.zoomadrid.com ), which is perennially popular and has an impressive aquarium. Adjoining it is a large and recently modernized amusement park, the Parque de Atracciones (July & Aug daily noon-midnight, Fri & Sat till 2am; Sept-June daily noon-11pm, Sat till 1am; access only €4.20, €18.60 for a day ticket, which includes most rides, children €11.10; www.parqueatracciones.es ), with its assorted restaurants and cafés; during the summer, a variety of concerts are held in the auditorium within. Both are easiest reached by bus (#33 and #65 from Príncipe Pío), which will take you right to the gates; the Batán metro station is a ten-minute walk through scrubland. Be warned that many of the main access roads through the park have been taken over by prostitutes (banished from the city streets by the council), and can become crowded with kerb-crawlers, both day and night.