Day 5: El Escorial

Day 5 was dedicated to the city of El Escorial. While in Spain Travis and I really enjoyed walking from the train or bus station to wherever we were headed. Most of the time it was a good mile or 2 walk, but the weather was perfect and we got to see so much on the way. So we did our usual routine when we got to El Escorial, and I wanted to die by the time we got to the Monistary there. It was straight uphill. Beautiful, but straight uphill.

Anyhow, after about killing over, we made it to the beautiful monistary. Built in 1563. I was blown away by sheer size of it. Huge and amazing. This was both a monistary and a palace for royalty and now is the burial site for most of the Spanish Kings of the last 5 centuries.

(Image stole from the web)
We were pretty bummed to find that it's closed to visitors on Mondays. Travis told me a little about the inside and it sounds pretty amazing, but it was still very cool to see the grounds and be in the beautiful city.



After checking out the Monistary we walked up to the main city square and I fell in love with it. It was just beautiful, and somehow I forgot to take a picture of it! There was a gorgeous waterfall fountain and the trees shaded the cobblestone streets to perfection. I could have shopped there in their darling boutiques all day long. It sits just above the Monistary so the view is just lovely. After seeing the square we started the trek down to the other part of the city, and found this beautiful trail that runs along an old rock fence. The fence surrounds the prince's royal hunting lodge (also closed on Mondays!). But the size of the garden alone was astounding. And walking the pathways was lovely. They had plaques up along the way with sayings from the monks who used to walk the same trail each day. Very cool.
The prince's house is in there...can you spot it?
We then walked to the 'downtown' area of El Escorial and dined on our usual lunch of a tortilla sandwich for T and a queso manchego sandwich for me. We sat in the park and ate and just relaxed. It was one of my favorite moments of the trip. After our picnic lunch we opted to walk just a little further and stumbled on this beautiful church built in 1594. I still can't get over just stumbling into these amazing, and very old buildings. It was such an adventure!

Then we reluctantly made our way back to the city via the train. T reading the paper-catching up on some Spanish news.
Self portrait right after saying, "I really should capture my sexy hair."
I must add that I really, really loved not doing my hair for a week straight.
It was heaven!
Tomorrow:Monzenaares El Real.
The last day! Boo!