Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial

Today Felipe and I took a day trip from Madrid to El Escorial to see the old monastery there. We were supposed to go to Toledo (but decided to save that for a less rainy day), instead we took the train to visit Escorial. It was amazing!

I took most of my photos on the "old school camera" so I will post a couple of the digital shots I took in the meanwhile.

The train ride there was mostly beautiful (of course there were a few parts of the suburbs that weren't too picturesque), at one point we even saw groups of deer roaming around...amazing! Here's a short little video (mind you this is not professional and will have moments of reflection and obscured views):




Of course that brought us to the town where the monastery is located. We walked a bit and then spent several hours inside the monastery exploring over 400 years of history. It's a highly recommendable day trip from Madrid:


A view of the village streets.


A view from inside the King's living quarters.


Another view from the King's chambers, here you can see the gardens and the field with cattle in the distance.

Go here for more information about El Escorial: http://www.patrimonionacional.es/en/escorial/escorial.htm or http://wikitravel.org/en/El_Escorial