When I looked at the list of all World Heritage Sites around Madrid, Aranjuez was the least interesting site in my initial opinion; however, after visited the place, it became the second least interesting site since Alcala de Hanares won the position. Since I already saw the Royal Palace in Madrid twice including its grand royal park couple of month ago, I was not happy to have a trip just to see another Spanish royal palace, so pairing it with Cuenca was a good idea.

From Madrid I drove to Aranjuez, the city was quite lovely with many greens and fine houses, some kind of prosperous neighborhood, but when I reach city center, the view of ideal royal city welcomed me with grand scale, Grand palace on the right, French landscape gardens on the left and large square with beautiful San Antonio de Padua Church at the far end in the middle. I drove into a small alley next to palace complex, the buildings, pavement, trees were all stately and beautiful design, however those large open spaces in front of the church and next to the palace with few people around made the city a bit desert and lifeless and the area in front of the palace were shockingly rundown with shabby gardens and abandoned and ruined buildings. I toured the interior of the Aranjuez Palace, as other reviews mentioned, certain rooms especially the Moorish room and porcelain room were quite stunning and the display of royal gowns of Spanish queens and princesses for the coronation and weddings were really impressive. After the palace I visited the royal garden, I really enjoyed the lovely cascade of the river despite of some maintenance works obscured the view. The garden overall was fine but in my opinion a bit shabby luckily, I found a group of peacocks which saved the grace of this royal garden. I planned to visit other nearby UNESCO listed royal palaces and gardens, but after saw Aranjuez Palace, I already lost my appetite, so I decided to end my time in Aranjuez and continued to Cuenca.

All in all, I did not find any special with this World Heritage Site, the site was quite typical in term of European royal palace which tried to imitate Versailles. I also found that the gardens which should be the main attribute of the cultural landscape status was quite disappointing, although its shabbiness maybe Spanish garden characteristic as I saw similar situation at other parks in Madrid few days later. The only thing I found interesting was the river management by small dam and cascade at the entrance of the royal garden behind the palace, which was quite impressive, but maybe not enough to win my heart for its Outstanding Universal Value.