With six boats on each side (and several cannons) sailing full steam ahead, the Museum of the Royal Barges of Aranjuez reopens. This unique building reopens its doors after nine months of work and restoration of the boats themselves in order to display them “in optimal conditions of stability and historical interpretation,” in the words of National Heritage. Admission to this curious museum, located in the Prince’s Garden and close to the Royal Landing Stage, is included in the general admission ticket to the Palace of Aranjuez.
The ponds and rivers were more than just the setting for bucolic scenes and country getaways for the monarchy. They were an indispensable part of the court’s leisure and social life. Thus, as in Ancient Rome, they served as venues for celebrations, festivities, parties, and reenactments of naval battles (naumaquias). For this purpose, these boats, so rich in detail and exuberant in their decoration, were used.
This museum space, which today houses six barges, was created at the end of the 19th century, but its future does not lie here: in 2027, construction will begin on a new museum that will look (even more) towards the Tagus “where the barges can be seen in their natural context, the place for which they were designed,” as indicated in the National Heritage note, and which is scheduled to open its doors in 2028.
Editorial credit: National Heritage
Until then, we can enjoy the golden gondola of Charles II (commissioned in Naples in 1683), the oldest boat in the exhibition and which National Heritage describes as “the most spectacular.”
There is also the barge of Charles IV, built in the port of Cartagena and renowned for its heraldic motifs. Or the pleasure boat of Ferdinand VII, not without its share of gossip, as it was built for Maria Isabel de Braganza (Ferdinand VII’s second wife) but ended up being used by Maria Cristina de Bourbon (the king’s fourth and last wife).
Next is Isabel II’s mahogany canoe (a boat from Ferrol dating from 1859 and used by Alfonso XII in the Casa de Campo), another boat belonging to the same queen, designed by José Tuduri de la Torre with the dedication “Mahón to its Queen.” And, to top it all off, the most recent falúa, that of Alfonso XII, which was given to the city of Ferrol in 1879 and which the monarch used and sailed in during his summers in San Sebastián.