Jardines del Buen Retiro de Madrid, Royal gardens in central Madrid, Spain

The Jardines del Buen Retiro were public gardens at the south-eastern corner of Calle de Alcalá and the Paseo del Prado, on the slightly raised ground of the Prado Alto. They were separate from the Parque del Retiro and occupied the site where the Palacio de Cibeles, formerly the Palacio de Comunicaciones, now stands.

These gardens were the landscaped area of the old Buen Retiro recreation complex, in the part called Prado Alto, a slight hill. In the 19th century the land became independent of the palace grounds and drew strong real-estate interest; in 1904 the Cortes approved its reclassification, and felling and levelling began for the Palacio de Comunicaciones, opened in 1918.

The gardens' name lived on in the Teatro de los Jardines del Buen Retiro, a popular theatre built within their perimeter in the 1880s. Pío Baroja set much of his novel Las noches del Buen Retiro here, a nostalgic portrait of late-19th-century Madrid. Arturo Barea, in Forja de un rebelde, recalls going to the gardens in front of the Retiro when there was music.

The gardens no longer exist: their site is the corner of Calle de Alcalá and Paseo del Prado, now occupied by the Palacio de Cibeles, Madrid's city hall since 2007. Look for that building to locate where the elevated Prado Alto ground once stood.

The gardens were the setting of Pío Baroja's novel Las noches del Buen Retiro, a nostalgic portrait of late-19th-century Madrid. Arturo Barea also mentions them in Forja de un rebelde, distinguishing them from the Retiro park itself.