Fodor's Expert Review Casa de Campo

Over five times the size of New York's Central Park, Casa de Campo is Madrid’s largest park and a nature-lover’s paradise, complete with bike trails, picnic tables, pine forests, lakeside restaurants (seek out Villa Verbena, run by the folks behind Triciclo in Barrio de las Letras), and a public outdoor pool (€5 entry). See if you can spot wildlife like hawks, foxes, hares, and red squirrels—and, from November to May, a flock of sheep cared for by a real-deal shepherd. The park's name ("country house") is a holdover from when the grounds were the royal family's hunting estate. It became public property in May 1931 with the arrival of the Spanish Second Republic, which dissolved royal landholdings.