If you enter the 20-acre garden through the fine Puerta de Murillo gateway, the architects’ formal plan is still discernible. It descends down a slope in four main sections into which later items have been fitted, including a Japanese garden and a long archway planted with 400 varieties of grape, including those which are important for modern Spanish winemakers. In Madrid’s summer the green vistas down the garden’s avenues are havens sustained by irrigation and patterns of light and shade from adjoining trees.