Madrid Part V: El Escorial and Valencia

El Escorial

A semester in Madrid is not complete without a trip into the mountains of Madrid to visit El Escorial! El Escorial is a monastery, palace, and school all rolled into one. I went to visit this incredible monument on a trip with BeMadrid, a group that organizes activities and trips for exchange students in Madrid. Our tour guide, Sergio, knew a lot about the monument and gave us a really interesting tour of the buildings and the surrounding mountains! He explained to us that it was built by Phillip II of Spain and that his father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V/Carlos I of Spain, was buried there along with almost all the Spanish monarchs who have ruled since. We were not permitted to take pictures inside of the buildings, but here are some from outside!

After the tour, Sergio brought us up one of the mountains. He let us pick the longer easy way or the shorter hard way, we went for the harder one, which was still a relatively easy hike up!

The Madrid mountains are beautiful and El Escorial is an unmissable relic of Spanish history!

Valencia

I love Madrid, and one of my favorite parts of spending my semester here is being in the middle of Spain, where you can reach all the other cities pretty easily! I went to Valencia on one of the high speed trains, it was a cheap and quick way to get to and from the city and we did not have to get there a few hours early to get to our platform like you must do when you fly, just 30min early. I would highly recommend the trains! Once we got there, I was amazed by Valencia! 

I happened to go the week when Valencia hosts one of the greatest pyrotechnical festivals in the world, las fallas! Las Fallas are these kinds of monuments that groups of Spaniard from Valencia and the surrounding area make, they are often political caricatures that are set up around the city for several days before they are burned on the last night of the festival. I unfortunately couldn't stay in Valencia to see the burning, and several people I have talked to about it have said that i was really missing out! :( Just seeing the elaborate statues was incredible though!