We could not take pictures inside, but we went on a guided tour of the middle part of El Escorial, where everything was located, as one side was the boarding school, and the other side was a monastery for monks. We first saw the bedrooms of the King Philip II and his wife, which was pretty plain but still had their bed in it. Apparently he thought that kings should live like monks and monks should live like kings. The daughter's bedroom was on the other side of the basilica (that's right a Church separated them). Apparently Philip II wanted to be able to hear mass when he was in his room, and the rooms had windows, so Philip and his wife could saw goodnight to their daughter. We then walked into a large room that was where Philip exercised, because he did not want to walk outside because it was too cold. We walked into some other rooms, with various paintings of royalty, but were still pretty plain.
We then walked down steps with walls, ceilings, and floor lined with marble, and were in the Pantheon of the Kings, a mausoleum with the remains of kings and queens of Spain. The room had a rounded top, which was located exactly below the altar of the basilica, and had a lot of marble and bronze covered with gold. There were 8 walls, so the kings matched up with the kings on the opposite side. The room holds all the kings and queens of Spain since Carlos I, except for the 2 recently deceased, and the present. There will be no room for the present king and queen, so another place may have to be built. The 2 recently deceased king and queen are in the "rotting chamber", as our guide called it, for another 40 years, for a total of 50 years. They wait until all is left is the bones so they can put them in the mausoleum. We walked back up the stairs and walked through room after room that had deceased princes, princesses, and extra wives (our guide said that one king had 4 wives, and 44 children, some not with those wives). Some of the tombs were not filled, as some chose not to be buried there or are still living. We also came to a room for children who died who were under 7 years old, which had the tombs in the middle in marble shaped like a wedding cake. When a child turned 7, they went through First Communion and a received cake, so this was representing the cake they never received.
The room after that was part of where the monks lived and met, and was decorated with paintings by famous Spanish artists and beautiful frescoes on the ceiling. We also looked at a giant grand staircase that the monks used, that had an even bigger fresco on the ceiling. This part isn't used by the current monks that live there. We looked at the basilica, which was very big. The altar was magnificent with paintings of Jesus and also statues that got bigger the higher they were, so they appear to be the same size. The last part of our inside tour was the library, which had very old books that were organized by looking at the fresco painted on the ceiling....I'm not sure how well that worked. In order to preserve the books better, the books were placed bind to the wall of the bookshelf.
We spent a little bit of time looking at the gardens, which were gorgeous. Here are some pictures.
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| Courtyard of the Kings |
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| Western wall of El Escorial |
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| El Escorial and the Gardens |
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| Mountains behind El Escorial |
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| Basilica of El Escorial |
For dinner we had vegetable puree, bread, and leftover canneloni. I feel like I have given enough facts about Spain in this blogpost, and I am tired, so I will skip the What I have Learned in Spain section, to be continued tomorrow!
¡Adios!
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