El Escorial

Today we took a trip outside of Madrid to the famous monastery of San Lorenzo, probably better known as El Escorial. 

Ahh. But to do that we first had to lock horns with the national Spanish railway stystem, Renfe. I needn't have worried though. The staff at the information desk were just brilliant. I gotta admire their application to a hard, technically complex and, for the most part, thankless job.

The trains themselves are just brilliant too. It's about a 1 hour ride to El Escorial and cost a paltry 12 euro for the both of us return. I figure the train averaged about 100 kph all the way and rode as smooth as silk.

El Escorial is something of an enigma. The building is part royal palace, part monastery, part medieval library and part Basilica. Right in the centre of the building (it's huge, about a 100 metres on a side) is the Basilica King Phillip the umpteenth built and dedicated to San Lorenzo for helping the Spanish win a great victory at the battle of Lepanto. He then extended the building by building a monastery and filling it with learned monks of the order of San Jeronimos. The monks quite naturally expanded the building yet again to incorporate the celebrated library they ran was an academic marvel of the age and attracted scholars from all over chrisendom. Libraries then as now still had trouble with people nicking their books though. So right on the front door is a papal bull threatening excommunication for anyone who pinchs one of their books. Can't say if it worked or not, but that warning was pretty serious stuff at the time.

Then Phillip decides he wants to live there too and expands it even further with the royal palace and apartments. 

The guided audio tour of the structure was interesting and vary informative, but again, no interior photos were permitted (what a bore). Even though it was a drizzly day mostly we got some shots for you.

This is what the inside of a Spanish suburban passenger carriage looks like.

No dirt, comfortable, nothing broken and NO graffiti.

 The imposing edifice of the Monasterio de San Lorenzo in El Escorial.

This beautiful garden is situated under the windows of King Phillip's apartment.

   

A tier lower in the royal garden is this stunning arrangement of geometrically laid out hedges and flower beds.