Parks of Madrid (sort of) - Natural Science Museum Educational Garden

The Museum of Natural Sciences has a little garden on the side with some well-worn informational signs in it.  It seems like one of those secret places that only people who live in the area or are obsessed with the museum will visit.  There also seem to be some signs that they actually do some educational activities in it, maybe for children.

From across the horrible street that takes 10 minutes to cross

Camouflaged up close

There's a rock lizard, but no real ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A palm tree with ... stuff

...Doesn't quite look the same

I get the impression that they have gardening experiments or workshops here, like in Retiro, but for the moment the garden looks pretty poorly cared for.  This is on the way to the "Educational Garden", where I saw a familiar resident of parks and green places in Madrid:

Oh, hello.

I think this is why it feels so relaxed here

There were two trails into the sitting area so I went to take the other one to not disturb the cat.  It probably gets enough disturbing.  But...

It came up the other side and was walking behind the benches like it was getting out of my way

Not a single sign around these things, by the way

Just pretend you're on a Mediterranean mountain

 

 

Here's ... something

There should be an artificial mountain stream down to the pond

But it's dry.  Maybe there's a bee's nest in there.  There are lots of bees

Water comes out of the water fountain, though.  Hot water

Sharp and spiny with round and flowery.  Leaves are pretty varied

Odoriferous jasmine plants

I got a good whiff of churchy incense at another corner of the garden too, which is strange since there aren't any churches in the immediate area.  I thought there might be some sandalwood, but didn't see any, or at least didn't see any signs.

Supposed to be madroños.  No fruit, but the skinny trunks look right

There are picnic tables scattered around, as well as little trash cans.  The Garden is actually a place I might keep in mind if I ever need a place to go for some peace and quiet.