El Escorial

Last Wednesday was a Madrid-exclusive holiday (aka no class) so our program took a day trip to see El Escorial, an old royal palace just an hour outside of Madrid, in San Lorenzo.  The palace, which was once home to Felipe II , is made up of his home, a huge monastery, a library, a school, and a museum.  Unlike most kings in Spanish history, Felipe was very modest and did not want his palace to be constructed as elaborately or decoratively as palaces in the past.  Every room in the palace is very austere, with limited intricacies and designs on the walls and ceilings.  Even the outside of the building is pretty plain, but really pretty nonetheless.  The palace palace is designed in a grid - it's basically a huge building with lots of square courtyards inside. The traditional belief is that King Felipe II wanted the palace to reflect a grill to honor San Lorenzo (the man the town is named after) since he burned to death on a grill. The palace also has many tombs of Spanish kings and queens.  In order to get there, you have to walk really far underground to a small circular room which is lined with gold and marble.  It's by far the most beautiful room in the palace, which is interesting because it is relatively inaccessible compared to other rooms in the palace and is only used to hold the tombs of dead royalty.

 El Escorial.

Inside one of the many courtyards.

 You can see how plain the exterior of the building is.  Definitely not as elaborate as the Palacio Real in Madrid.

Entrance to the monastery.

 The palace is located in the tiny town of San Lorenzo, right next to some mountains (covered by clouds in this picture).  San Lorenzo reminded me of a ski town actually, with cute local shops and narrow streets. If we had more time I would've loved to walk around a little more. Maybe next time...