El Escorial: The opposite of Madrid

---

Today we headed out of Madrid and to the little town of El Escorial. It is 30ish minutes North of Madrid. There we saw a beautiful Monestary that Felipe II built to celebrate the Spanish victory over the French in the battle of San Quintin. The monestary is also has attached to it a royal residence where Felipe II eventually died. For the tour, we had an amazing guide who spoke gramatically correct Spanish so we could all understand him.

When we got there, there was a wedding just finishing in the church. Apparently, the church is such a popular place to get married that you have to book at least a year in advance. On the plus side, it only costs 1000 euros (roughly $1300 USD) and that pays for the church, flowers, priest, and the necessary music people.

Anyway, after the wedding finished up, we were able to take a quick tour of the church before the next wedding started. They only schedule 5 minutes in between weddings but somehow we managed to have 10-15 inside... must have been a short homily. The church was absolutely gorgeous (see photos).

After seeing the church, we headed to Palace part of the monestary. It was really neat, but I must apologize, I was so interested in the tour that I forgot to take pictures! After seeing the palace, we went down underneath the palace to a room where most of Spain´s royalty is burried. Following the tombish stuff, we went to the library that is there. Apparently, this monestary has one of the most important libraries in the world (top 5 according to the guide) as far as having original manuscripts and such. He also said that you can actually arrange to view the manuscripts for free if you plan ahead which would be neat if you could read Greek...

Once we finished the monestary/palace tour, we had some free time for lunch and to see the city. We picked a small cafe with terrace seating so that we could be outside for lunch. When we looked at the menu, we realized that we were going to pay for that decision... literally. Every food item on the menu cost at least a Euro more to enjoy it on the terrace than if one were to dine inside. But we weren´t deterred; it was too hot to eat inside. Everything here has eggs on or in it, including the sandwhiches (cooked over-easy) so my sandwhich got really messy when the yoke burst but it was delicious.

We finished lunch with about an hour to kill before we had to be back to the bus so that we wandered the town. I don´t really have much to say other than it was absolutely gorgeous. I hope I can find some of my pictures to back me up on that.

Once we made it back to the bus, it was off to Toledo for another city and a whole new experience.

---