Royal Monastery of El Escorial + Valley of the Fallen: Half Day Tour from Madrid

This half-day tour will take you out of Madrid and deep into Spanish history. You’ll visit the imposing El Escorial (a UNESCO World Heritage site) built by Phillip II in the 1500s, and also visit The Valley of The Fallen. There you’ll see a profound and expansive memorial to those who died during the Spanish Civil War, and magnificent views of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range.

El Escorial sits at the foot of Mt. Abantos and it’s a rugged site for a vast, imposing monument. On the inside, though, you’ll first be surprised by the human feel of Phillip’s living quarters. He was famously pious and you’ll find low ceilings (for a palace!), bare-bones chandeliers, and plain-white walls. You’ll even see his modest bed (not even queen-size!).

After that, things grow in exuberance. The Royal Pantheon is the gilded resting place of 400 years of Spanish monarchs. There are 26 marble-and-bronze sarcophagi but only 23 of them contain a dead king – the other three are waiting for current and future monarchs to pass!

The basilica is the architectural heart of the building and reflects Phillip’s soaring faith in God - the dome peaks almost 100 meters above the floor. The library houses over 50,000 ancient books but is as famous for the color and art bursting from the tapestries on the walls and the paintings by El Greco, Velázquez and Rubens.

Five miles away is the Basilica of The Valley of The Fallen. It’s 262 meters long and cut into the Guadarrama mountain range itself. Inside you’ll find the monument to those who died in Spain’s civil war, and outside you’ll find splendid panoramas of the surrounding nature.