Castles · Tour

El Escorial Guided: the Eighth Wonder and the Library of Philip II

El Escorial has been called the Eighth Wonder of the World, on the strength of its size and of what it was meant to represent. This guided visit takes the rooms that carry the argument. The first question is why here. Philip II, king of Spain from 1556 to 1598, could have built anywhere in his territories and chose a slope at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama, well outside the capital. The guide answers that on the ground, which is the only place the answer makes sense. The route covers the basilica, the hall of battles, the pantheon where the kings of Spain are buried, and the palace apartments. And the library. This is the room where Philip II kept his books and spent hours reading, and it is the most surprising thing in the complex: a king who ruled half the world building himself a reading room and then using it. The shelves and the painted vault are the finest Renaissance interior in Spain. What the tour is really about is what happened inside these walls, which is a different subject from what they look like. Cancellation is free up to the day of the visit.