El Valle de los Caidos

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29 September 2016

The previous day we had looked down into the valley adjacent to the Alacazar to the Vera Cruz and before we left the Segovia area we visited this interesting twelve-sided church thought to have been built by the Knights Templar in the early 13^th century.

From there we headed south over the 1860m high Navacerrada Pass to an amazing but also disturbing structure in an area called El Valle de los Caidos (The Valley of the Fallen). In the 1940s and 50s General Franco, the winning leader in the 1930s Spanish Civil War, had built a huge underground basilica using prisoner of war labour from the losing side, allegedly as a memorial to the dead of both sides, though in reality as a shrine to him and his regime. Franco lies buried in the basilica. We found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that such a grandiose project was undertaken at a time that Spain was suffering great economic hardship.

We stopped the night at a campsite close by.

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