El Escorial

A few weekends ago my friends and I visited the palace called San Lorenzo del Escorial. It was the palace of King Philip II (El Rey Felipe II). This palace was COMLETLEY different from El Palacio Real. Nothing about this palace was ornate, except the monestary where the kings are buried, the library, and the church. This is because Felipe II was a control freak, who had terrible difficulty delegating tasks and dedicated 20 hours of his day to working. He had no time nor desire for ornate luxuries, but as always, the royal family and God came first -- thus those rooms were ornately decorated. Per ususal we were not allowed to take pictures inside the palace, so the ones you will see are from outside. However, my friends snapped a few photos inside while I stood as teh lookout so I'm copy and pasting some photos they took as well.

One cool thing about this castle is it's about 2 hours away from Madrid in a tiny little sleepy town. Felipe preferred this because he had fewer distractions and could focus on his work. However, imagine if you were a messenger from the city and had to travel to El Escorial -- it would take a full day! The town really looks like it's stuck in a time warp. It's very small, mountainous and cold!! you can check out more about the town here: http://www.sanlorenzoturismo.org/ingles/default2.htm

The palace is at the base of a mountain but at the top of a hill ... if that makes sense. it was about a 2km walk up hill from the train station to get to the palace and we had to walk up the path of the prince -- it looked like something right out of a shrek movie!

walking up the path ... wishing we had super powers to get us there more quickly.

buried in the monestary is Don Juan, Felipe's brother. THE DON JUAN. the don juan all other don juan references regarding womanizing and chivalry have related back to. he's just been chillin' inside that box in the basement of the unused palace -- for the past 400 years. oh did i mention the palace was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING. i forgot insulation did not exist in the 1500s.

part of the monastery -- this is as ornate as the decorations get. Like the marble floors? built by hand circa 500 years ago.

the bottom of the path. playing with the close - up feature on my camera. The tree bark was very unusual! also the trees leaned to the left. as you will see in the next few pictures.

looking back from the top of the path.

quite a view!

i took these pics from a 2nd story window -- look how far you can see ... even on a cloudy day!

and finally ...

these were taken from the patio in front of the palace ... as you can see everything starts climbing up the mountain behind the palace.

one thing Felipe did quite like was Art. Velazquez was his private painter and among the palace are works of art from many many famous spanish artists. Some works of Goya, Velazquez and others are not originals though, those hang in the Prado which I also visited last weekend, but I'll save that for another post.