Field Trip to El Escorial

El Escorial is a pueblo in the mountains outside Madrid that happens to have a royal palace, and also happens to be where Menchi is from.

Look at that view
It was freezing (and I'm being studious)

The story is that Felipe II's army (circa late 1500s) won a battle against the French at San Quintin on the fiesta of San Lorenzo (his 'saint' day). So, to give thanks for victory, Felipe II decided to build a palace dedicated to San Lorenzo. In case you didn't know, San Lorenzo was basically barbequed - martyred on a grill, so the Monasterio Real de San Lorenzo de El Escorial pays tribute to that by incorporating the grill design in the architecture (hey, Jesus is symbolized by the thing on which he died too).

See? It's kind of grill shaped...

Basically, everything from the bars on the windows to the things that hold the ropes to keep you in line are reminiscent of the grill San Lorenzo died upon. Charming.

San Lorenzo with his grill

Grill shaped window bars. Sensing a theme?

Our visit was all about the history class, since it was required for us to incorporate aspects of El Escorial into our papers (not sure what aspects yet. I'll let you know when I finish the paper). So we booked it through the tapestry and painting and architecture exhibits to get to the good stuff: the palace itself. It was surprisingly simple for a royal palace, with little decoration and such. I really liked the Pantheon, which is basically the burial chamber for dead Spanish Kings and Queens (but only the mother of the next king gets to be buried there). Amalia told us a fun fact, though - there's basically a room off the pantheon for all the bodies to be stored so they can rot before they are put into the coffin designated for them. Obviously this is a genius idea, since it means the Pantheon won't smell of rotting flesh, but still, ick. There are only two more coffins open in the Pantheon, and they will be filled with the bodies of the mother and father of Juan Carlos (current king), which are currently passing the time in the rotting room. Charming.

My sneaky picture of going into the Pantheon

The Pantheon itself

Once again, we couldn't take photos inside, but there it is in all its glory. Guess its ok for dead kings to have nicely decorated rooms. There were several other rooms full of dead people, including infantes and infantas (sons and daughters of kings that did not go on to be king or queen) and Juan de Austria, an iligitimate son of Carlos I who turned out to be pretty legit after all, since he got a niche all to himself. There was also what Amalia described as a "cake" of dead infantes and infantas who died before puberty.

That is filled with dead children. Charming.

So what did I learn from our trip to El Escorial? That it is a cute pueblo with a nice view and a palace with a fixation on the macabre. Until next time...