The Botanic Garden & the Jerónimos: behind the Prado
The royal botanic garden, the king's old church, and a hill of second-hand books. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Real Jardín Botánico
Charles III's botanic garden of 1781, laid out in formal terraces between the Prado and Atocha. Cheap to enter and almost never busy in the morning — pay it, and walk the lower parterres before the school groups arrive. The greenhouse at the top is worth the climb.

2. Cuesta de Moyano
The slope rising west of the garden, lined with green wooden book stalls that have sold second-hand and remaindered books here since the 1920s. Browse even if you can't read Spanish; the spines and the ritual are the point. Best in the morning, Sunday quietest of all.

3. Calle de Claudio Moyano and the quiet streets
Top of the slope, where the noise of Atocha falls away and the streets behind the Prado go residential and still. No single landmark — just walk north on the calm side and let the city slow down.

4. Iglesia de San Jerónimo el Real
The king's church, late-Gothic and twin-towered, where Spanish monarchs were once acclaimed and still are crowned. Slip in for the high white nave; the cloister was swallowed by the Prado's extension next door. Climb the steps out front for the view back over the museum.

5. Calle de Moreto and the back of the Prado
The lane between the church and the museum, where the Prado's modern Jerónimos wing meets the old stone. A two-minute walk that most museum crowds never see. Carry on north along the quiet flank.

6. Plaza de la Lealtad
A calm oval of a square with an obelisk to the fallen of 1808 and the grand old Ritz on one side. The end of the quiet, and a block from Banco de España — a soft landing after the gardens.

The Botanic Garden & the Jerónimos: behind the Prado