There are paintings so magnificent – like Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights – that you need to both admire all the tiny intricate details up close and take a step back to marvel at the entire spectacle.
However, appreciating era-defining artworks in all their glory has gotten a little tricky at Madrid’s Prado Museum, which, in 2025, welcomed record-breaking numbers of visitors.
A staggering 3.5 million people wandered the halls of the institution last year, past Bosch’s bizarre masterpiece and other spectacular works like Goya’s The Third of May 1808 and Velázquez’s Las Meninas, but now museum officials are calling time on what they say are becoming unmanageable crowds.
‘Plan Host’ is the name of the new project, which will cap visitor numbers to ensure everybody has the space to properly enjoy the museum, rather than feel like they’re ‘catching the metro in rush hour’, in the words of director Miguel Falomir.
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It’s not clear what the new cap will be just yet, but the intention is to preserve both visitor experience and the museum’s infrastructure. ‘A museum’s success can collapse it, like the Louvre, with some rooms becoming oversaturated. The important thing is not to collapse,’ said Falomir, according to artnet.
Other world-famous institutions and tourist attractions, such as Athens’s Acropolis and Pompeii Archeological Park, have implemented restrictions on the number of visitors over the last couple of years, though interestingly, the enormous overhaul planned at the Louvre aims to increase footfall even more.
The project at the Prado also strives to make the museum more attractive to local Spanish visitors – in 2025, 65 percent of visitors were international tourists – by optimising the entrances and shrinking the size of guided groups.
Stay tuned for more updates, including when the official visitor numbers cap is announced.
📍 In the meantime, check out the best things to do in Madrid right now.
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