San Lorenzo de El Escorial Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

A fellow grad student who I met in Barcelona emailed me one day with some news. She was doing research in the monastic library at El Escorial and had happened upon a 14th-century manuscript containing copies of royal letters pertinent to my dissertation topic. Since I was heading up to Madrid for the conference, I decided to take an extra day to go to El Escorial and have a look. I had already been there as a tourist, but visiting a historic site for research purposes is somewhat different....

Different cities in Spain

Blog del viaje de 7 dias a la zona norte y central de Portugal, incluyendo Lisboa.

Wikipedia details: The valley that contains the monument, preserved as a national park, is located 10 km northeast of the royal site of El Escorial, northwest of Madrid. Beneath the valley floor lie the remains of 40,000, whose names are accounted for in the monument's register. Although the valley contains Nationalist and Republican graves – several former Republicans' bodies were moved there from temporary graves at the end of the war – the tone of the monument is distinctly Natio...

Today I decided to go a little farther from Madrid, actually on the outskirts of the "Comunidad de Madrid" area. As routine I rode the metro to the "Atocha" station, and from there boarded a train bound for El Escorial (named after the palace there). In this town you find one of the biggest palaces in Spain. We entered the palace through its basilica, a very large, impressive structure. We then proceeded to the Court of the Kings, a very nicely decorated courtyard, before entering the main pa...

Fun filled vacation in Spain from March 16-24th. Major cities visited - Madrid and Barcelona. Day trips to El Escorial, Segovia and Monteserrat. Major sights visited - Royal Palace, Picasso Museum, La Sagrada Familia and Much Much More!