El Escorial

So today, I found a friend, and ventured on a day trip to El Escorial, the palace of the Spanish Kings. Not only was it a good 5 hour trip from Salamanca, but it was also very cold. Needless to say, it was breathtakingly beautiful. Sadly, pictures on the inside were not allowed and very strictly monitored, so I couldn't even sneak a few.
Starting my day at 5am..we ended up at El Escorial at 12ish..(delays, etc) and the building greeted me by saying, "hello little ant. I will swollow you whole. Welcome to my belly of stone and art and dead spanish royalty." We decided to do the audio tour instead of the human guided tour (great idea) because we wanted to spend more time there. Little did we know we would be in there for 4 hours looking at italian originals, crypts of spanish royalty, and the basilica.

El Patio De Los Reyes (the patio of the kings)

One of El Escorial's 9 tours. We climbed one of them to get a view of the town, the surrounding mountians, and a giant mural comparable to Versailles' Hall of Mirrors painted to look like a tapestry depicted all of the great Spanish battles.

The secret entrance to the Basilica that we found. Luckily, the spanish kings let the wind die down just long enough for me to get a picture with what is one of the most beautiful churches that I have seen my whole entire life (Better than Notre Dame!).

Yeah. The town is that beautiful. The sky was that blue.



The biggest picture I could get of El Escorial. It was just to big to caputre on film.

After find out that Valle de los Caidos (where Franco is burried and a civil war monument) was closed, we decided to head back to Madrid and find the Museo de Trajes (a clothing museum which dates spanish fashion from 1500's to today). Well, we got lost and with a coffee and tortilla to give us energy, we did what girls do best in a big city: shop.

I finally found where there was gluten free food in Spain, so I stalked up as much as I could and then we realized that we were going to miss the 7pm bus. So a quick 30 mintue metro trip, we get there to reserve our ticket and have to wait 2 more hours for the 9pm bus. So, after a 2 hour wait and a 3 hour bus ride home, I am clearly exhaused (but well fed, thanks to el Corte Ingles). I will leave you with a picture of how really windy it was today. Tomorrow I plan on exploring Salamanca a bit. Maybe off again next weekend! I'm liking this travel around Spain thing.

Besitos y Abrazos,
Ashley