You Spain Me Right Round baby, Right Round..: El Escorial, pt. 1

So I have been dying to get out of the city, and last Monday we had a meeting with the program to try and get our NIE residency cards and I didn't have to go back to school to teach afterwards. So after the meeting, I booked it to the train station, bought a ticket for El Escorial and hopped on the train. For those of you who don't know, I love history so I will probably be stocking these posts with as much history and stories as I can. To warn you I'll put a big HISTORIA sign up so you can choose whether you would like to enrich your lives or not. So, HISTORIA.

El Escorial is a city northwest of Madrid best known for its huge palace/monastery near the edge of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range. Felipe II (King of Spain from 1556-98) built it as a final resting place for his father Carlos I of Spain (Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). Felipe II was King of Naples, Sicily, Milan, The Netherlands, Spain and The New World so you can imagine all the riches this guy acquired (read: stole). This place is legit. The chief architect Juan Bautista de Toleda adopted a plain architectural style known as desornamentado, meaning unadorned, for the exterior. For reasons to be explained soon I won't get into detail yet about the interior. END HISTORIA.

It was great finally getting out of city and into the countryside. As I said goodbye to Madrid...

Madrid's 4 skyscrapers in the background

I said Hello to deer, cows and rabbits on my voyage to Felipe II's majestic city. I got really excited when I saw the palace from the train on the way there, however when I disembarked it had disappeared. How do you lose a gigantic palace in a small city? So I followed some signs that suggested the monastery was up ahead and after a 1.5 mile walk (should have taken the bus..) the palace appeared out of nowhere!

Spanish Hide and Seek Champion.

Isn't it awesome!? It kind of reminded me of the Beauty and the Beast castle (pre-transformation back to humans) because it was overcast and it was a little spooky, but that could just be my proclivity to Disney-fy my life. I took some pictures, walked around a bit then thought I'd take a step inside. Little did I know, the San Lorenzo de El Escorial had a different fate awaiting me.

Free admission to the person who remembers what day I went..

Well then. So I wanted to make a day out of my trip so I continued to walk around and was pleasantly surprised to find other things to amuse myself during my stay in El Escorial. There was a couple other splendid churches in the area, a nice park that I got to walk through, and plenty.of friendly people. After I got lost in the park it began to rain so I thought I'd call it a day. Not a perfect first trip outside of Madrid, but that's why this post is called El Escorial pt. 1. Here are some more pictures to feed your hunger!