El Escorial

A friend I met at a hostel here in Madrid during my first week, Rashid, and I spent yesterday in El Escorial, a town situated about 50 kilometers from Madrid in the very verdant Sierra Guadarrama range. We made our way by cercanias (train). The ride took an hour and cost 7 euros round trip. Trains stop with much greater frequency here than in Washington State, at all towns and suburbs, making long distance trasportation accesible to more people..fare is much cheaper and trains don't sell out..instead, they fill up, with people often having to stand for intervals until a seat becomes available. We saw two women try to dogde fare and when they were caught and given penalty fees three or four times the price of tickets, they claimed not to have enough money. They were let off the train at the next stop, without fines. In the US, surely, they would have been fined.

Walking toward the monestary through well manicured royal gardens.

As you may deduce from the grey sky,
Saturday promised rain, but we tried our luck and
managed to spend the entire day dry. If anything, the
hovering clouds helped us stay warm, blanketing us at
the higher elevation where the temperatures are lower.

Monestario de San Lorenzo de El Escorial: historical residence of the
Royal Family, which today still functions as a school, monestary and museum.

Courtyard..the long line of people are waiting to enter the monestary.

Talavera (thank, mom) decorated many halls and chambers, reminding me of Puebla,

where I lived in Mexico where Talevera is a very popular tradition as well.

Sala de las batallas. This part of the monestary impressed me the most. The murals is incredibly detailed and layered, even the horses express emotion.

Entering the Panteon de los reyes, where many Kings of Spain are entombed.

Kind of eerie, I must say. After visiting this part the monestary,

we walked through chambers containing royal infantiles (children).

Renaissance architecture, of the grandest quality that stands in Spain/Europe, or so I've read.

El paisaje, mucho mas verde que esperaba.

Rashid looking back at the monestary as we walk into the hills away from it.

Automnal colors