Jardines del Rastro

Public gardens along the south wall with views toward the Sierra de Gredos

The Jardines del Rastro are a small public park outside the southern gate of the city walls, below the wall's highest section. The gardens are an unpretentious local amenity — benches, a café terrace, some mature trees — but they occupy a superb position: the wall rises directly behind you, and to the south the land drops away toward the Sierra de Gredos mountains, with views across a wide agricultural plateau. On clear days the Gredos peaks (rising to over 2,500 metres) are visible in the middle distance.

The gardens are a good place to sit and see the walls at close range from the outside, particularly in the evening when the stone is warm from the afternoon sun. The café in the gardens is a popular spot for coffee before the late Castilian lunch hour. From here you can walk west along the base of the walls toward the Puerta del Alcázar, or east to the Puerta de San Vicente, taking in the full circuit at ground level.

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The Jardines del Rastro occupy the space just outside the Puerta del Rastro — the southern gate of the city walls, named for the rastro (slaughterhouse) that once stood here. Medieval cities typically located their slaughterhouses outside the walls and downhill from the water supply, so the Rastro gate was always the working-class entrance. The gardens replaced the functional buildings in the early 20th century, softening a corner that had previously been quite utilitarian.

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