I got to play tour guide this weekend! My friend Lauren from Marquette came to visit from Florence, where she’s spending the semester. Not until she came did I realize just how many of Madrid’s touristy things I haven’t done simply because I live here.
The best way to experience Madrid is just to explore on foot. There are so many cool buildings, parks and monuments throughout the city. We did plenty of walking. But here’s a taste of the tourist Madrid we explored this week:
El Palacio Real
El Palacio Real. We couldn't take photos inside, but the outside is pretty impressive.
Commissioned by King Felipe V in the early 18th century, this gigantic white edifice looms over the Ópera area of Madrid. It sits on a bluff overlooking the mountains and Manzanares River. Alfonso XIII was the last to live there until 1931. Now the Spanish king and queen live on the outskirts of Madrid, but the Palacio Real is still used on special occasions.
There’s 2,800 rooms inside — Lauren and I toured about 1/100 of them. It’s magnificently ornate with swirling marble floors, walls lined with silk and intricately woven tapestries. One room is made and decorated entirely with porcelain, walls and everything. We walked through the banquet hall that seats 140. We saw the battle armor of knights and swords as sharp as they were 300 years ago. Very much worth a trip, and they have a student discount. It was great to finally go inside after walking past it for four months. It’s kind of hard to miss…
La Catedral de la Almudena
The white cathedral matches the Royal Palace.
Adjacent to Palacio Real, this cathedral built in1883 is equally impressive. It honors Madrid’s female patron saint, the Virgin of Almudena. When the Arabs invaded Spain, the Christians living in the area hid a statue of the Virgin Mary in a vault enclosed in a wall surrounding the city. When the Christians re-conquered Madrid in 1085, they looked for the statue. It is said that the wall opened up to show the statue and two burning candles. The name now comes from the Arabic word almudeyna, meaning wall of old citadel. This is also the name of my 13-year-old host sister! I love unique names with stories behind them.
Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial
We made a day trip out of this one, taking the Cercanías train about an hour from Madrid northwest to the town of El Escorial.
We first went to the monastery commissioned by King Felipe II and finished in 1584. It’s an enormous granite structure built to house Felipe II. You could compare El Escorial to Straz Tower, a residence hall on Marquette’s campus. Straz has the huge dorm rooms, a work out facility, pool, study and game rooms and a dining hall all in the same building — there’s no reason to leave.
We couldn't take photos inside El Escorial, but here's the basilica.
El Escorial contains a palace, monastery, basilica and library all within its walls. Felipe II never needed to go anywhere, kind of like those lucky Straz kids. The only thing Straz is missing is a Pantheon. Below El Escorial is the Panteón de los Reyes, where the bodies of Spanish royalty rest in marble and bronze sarcophagi. There’s three empty ones for future rulers. Good for the Spanish monarchs, but I don’t think I’d want to be buried under Straz Tower… kind of a morbid thought.
Another morbid thought: Felipe II constructed the place with a devotion to Saint Lawrence, so the floor plan is supposed to resemble a giant grill. Why? Because Saint Lawrence was martyred roasting alive on a giant grill. The Basilica is home to Titian’s The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, a fresco portraying the gruesome event. We didn’t get to see it, however, because the Basilica was closed for renovation.
The rest of the monastery was open for tours, however. Impressive and highly recommended!
El Valle de los Caídos
Daunting? I think so. Shame we couldn't take photos inside.
The Valley of the Fallen is certainly not to be missed on a trip to El Escorial. It’s about 15 minutes from the monastery by bus. But be warned: The place is eerie.
Our ears popped as we drove higher up into the mountains. The forest thickened and the temperature dropped. Then out from the trees we saw a gigantic stone cross looming from atop the mountain. The cross is nearly 500 feet high and made invisible by low clouds on rainy days.
Lauren said it looks like God would just reach down from the clouds and say, “Raaaaaaaar!”
Inside that mountain is a basilica almost as big as St. Peter’s in Rome. But this one’s just creepy.
That little door in the center is the entrance to the enormous basilica.
Right-wing Spanish dictator (with fascist ties) General Francisco Franco ordered its construction by 20,000 defeated communist prisoners. The basilica and crypt are supposed to commemorate those killed in the Spanish Civil War (1936-’39). After his death in 1975, General Franco’s body was moved to the basilica. José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of fascist Spanish Falange, also rests there. The remains of 34,000 Spaniards from both sides lay in the crypt.
Tapestries depicting the apocalypse hang from the walls. Dark stone angels with veiled faces emerge from the granite. The place is cold and has a coppery green light to it. There are no windows (well, yeah, they blew a big hole in a mountain to build it).
The audioguide was 2 euros, which we didn’t get, but I almost wish we did. There’s lots of political controversy with the construction of the basilica, and further commentary would have been nice.
You can hike up the mountain to the base of the cross. Lauren and I got about half way until we saw a “Closed for Renovation” sign. And then it started hailing. But that’s the mountains for ya.
Going Out in Madrid
Lauren and me on the bluff of Valle de los Caidos. It's an incredible view. P.S. This would be what my hair normally looks like (see previous post).
No tour of Madrid is complete without a meal from the Museo del Jamón, cheap bocadillos and tinto de verano from 100 Montaditos, sangria and tapas from El Tigre, and some Láser Karaoke (everything from Spanish love ballads to Abba’s Dancing Queen). And let’s not forget that Madrileños stay out ‘til the early a.m. on a regular basis. We may or may not have decided to skip that whole sleeping thing so Lauren could just jump right on her 7:10 a.m. flight back to Italy.
It was so great to see Lauren and show her around the city I’ve called home for almost four months. She goes back to the States in a week. Wishing her safe travels home!
