Castles · Tour

Valley of the Fallen and El Escorial, Five Hours from San Bernardo

Five hours out of central Madrid for two monuments in the Sierra de Guadarrama, and they could not be less alike. The Valley of the Fallen comes first. Its basilica is cut into the rock of the mountain, on a scale that is difficult to take in from photographs, and it was built by the Franco regime as what Franco called a national act of atonement. The work ran between 1942 and 1950, carried out mostly by free labour and, in a smaller but real proportion, by prisoners working under the sentence-redemption scheme. That history is part of the visit and is not skipped. Then the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, a World Heritage Site and the clearest statement of 16th-century Spanish power that survives. Philip II ordered it after the victory at San Quintín, won on Saint Lawrence's day in 1557, and built it as a mausoleum for his parents and for himself, dedicated to that saint. Both stand in the municipality of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 47 kilometres northwest of Madrid, below Mount Abantos. Departure is at 9.00 from Calle de San Bernardo, outside the shopping arcade, with check-in at 08:30.