El Escorial

First day trip was such a success!

Last Saturday Kate, Bayley, Leigh and I hopped on a bus and took a short 1 hour ride to San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a small town just outside of Madrid best known as a historical residence of the King of Spain (now the site of a royal palace/monastery.)

The main attraction is just this: El Escorial. As we learned from our tour guide and walk around the beautiful palace, El Escorial was built between 1563 and 1584 by King Philip II. And if anyone had reasons to dedicate more than two decades to build a palace it was this guy. The building was to commemorate his father, serve as a way to remember the victory of the Battle of San Quentin in Picardy and to hold the remains of his parents and descendants.

Today, the palace keeps the remains of the Spanish kings over the last 5 centuries!!! We even got to see the pantheon and it was breathtaking, as weird as that is to say about human remains.

The pantheon was located just under the Basilica (done on purpose), which was also stunning.

I could write pages about this palace and all that I learned, but to keep it short let's just say the way people lived back then (specifically royalty) is astounding. Just the queen had over 300 servants and the rooms are so intricate and beautifully designed that I don't know how they ever got themselves to leave the palace walls. The tapestry that fully lined almost every wall must have taken two decades in itself.

My favorite part of the trip (besides the chocoalte-banana crepes which I'll get to later), was the library. Sorry to be a nerd but this place has 45,000 books from the 15th and 16th centuries, along with over 5,000 pieces in Arabic, Latin, and Spanish. The books' pages looked like what you would see in a classic fairytale book. The library was impressive in its beauty as well. Vaulted cielings, ceramic tiles-the works. I never wanted to leave.

Sneaky enough to snap an illegal pic...

But then we travelled to the small Italian restaurant and had the chocolate-banana crepe served by a very handsome waiter named Aaron so my mind didn't linger on the books for too long.

100% hands-down recommended day trip for anyone travelling to Madrid.

#travel